THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


HAREMLIK 


H    A    R    E    M    L    I    K 

SOME  PAGES  FROM  THE  LIFE  OF 
TURKISH  WOMEN 


DEMETRA  VAKA 

(MRS.    KENNETH    BROWN) 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

MDCCCCX 


COPYRIGHT,    1909,    BY   DEMETRA    KENNETH   BROWN 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  May  iyx) 


SIXTH    IMPRESSION 


To  KENNETH  BROWN 

WHO    HAS    NOT    CROSSED    THE    THRESHOLD    OF   A 

HAREM,  BUT  WITHOUT  WHOSE  HELP  THESE 

FRIENDS    OF    MINE    WOULD    NEVER 

HAVE   CROSSED    THEIRS 


NOTE 

THE  contents  of  this  book  are  not  ficti- 
tious, unusual  as  parts  of  it  may  appear  to 
Western  readers.  There  has  been  some  re- 
arranging of  facts,  to  make  for  compact- 
ness —  incidents  of  several  days  have  some- 
times been  told  as  of  one.  Substantially, 
however,  everything  is  true  as  told. 


CONTENTS 

I.  COMING  HOME  TO  TURKEY  ....      i 

II.    MlHIRMAH 30 

III.  DjIMLAH,  THE  THINKER,  SELIM   PA- 

SHA'S  FOURTH  WIFE 59 

IV.  VALIDE  H  ANOUM,  THE  RESIGNED  FIRST 

WIFE 84 

V.  THE  GIFT-WIFE  FROM  THE  SULTAN'S 

PALACE 96 

VI.  HOULME  H  ANOUM,  THE  DISCONTENTED  129 
VII.  SUFFRAGETTES  OF  THE  HAREM     .     .  153 

VIII.  THE  LOVE  OF  NOR-SEMBAH  AND  HA- 

KIF  BEY .  191 

IX.  A  DAY'S  ENTERTAINMENT  IN  THE  HA- 
REM     219 

X.  A  FLIGHT  FROM  THE  HAREM    .    .    .  249 


COMING   HOME    TO   TURKEY 

THE  mist  was  slowly  lifting  —  so  slowly 
that  one  could  imagine  an  invisible  hand  to 
be  reluctantly  drawing  aside  veils  from  the 
face  of  nature.  As  the  air  became  clearer, 
the  slender  minarets  were  seen  first  above 
the  other  buildings ;  and  then,  little  by  little, 
Constantinople,  Queen  of  Cities,  revealed 
herself  to  our  hungry  eyes.  And  as  if  Nature 
were  but  Constantinople's  handmaiden,  the 
last  of  the  fog  was  suddenly  transmuted  to 
glorious  sunshine,  that  we  might  the  more 
surely  be  surprised  and  dazzled  with  the 
beauty  of  the  Sultan's  capital. 

The  steamer  slowly  puffed  onward.  On 
one  side  of  us  lay  the  seven-hilled  city,  where 
all  races  dwell  peacefully  together;  on  the 

i 


other  was  Stamboul,  the  ancient  capital  of 
Byzantium,  with  the  remnants  of  its  old  wall, 
and  the  ever  famous  Old  Serai,  dark  and 
mysterious  as  the  crimes  committed  within 
its  walls. 

To  the  other  passengers  all  was  new  and 
thrilling,  and  they  were  rushing  from  one 
side  of  the  steamer  to  the  other,  exclaiming, 
shouting,  incapable,  it  seemed  to  me,  of  ap- 
preciating the  splendors  nature  was  lavishing 
before  their  eyes.  The  more  beauty  they 
saw,  the  more  they  shouted,  as  if  by  power 
of  lung  they  could  induce  their  souls  to  ad- 
miration. 

I  sat  quietly  in  my  steamer-chair,  too 
much  moved  for  any  expression.  To  me  it 
wras  all  familiar,  and  dear  as  it  could  not  be  to 
casual  tourists.  I  knew  the  lights  and  shad- 
ows of  this  land,  and  loved  them  as  one 
loves  one's  native  country ;  for  Constantinople 
was  my  birthplace,  as  it  had  been  that  of  all 
my  ancestors  for  seven  centuries.  But  I  knew 
that  the  chorus  of  delight  and  admiration 


would  become  critical  as  soon  as  we  should 
be  landed.  To  me  there  was  poetry  in  every- 
thing; but  these  others  would  see  only  the 
narrow,  dirty  streets ;  and  the  stray  dogs  — 
most  vitally  characteristic  of  Turkey  — 
would  be  just  so  many  snapping  curs,  howl- 
ing and  littering  the  streets. 

Towards  us  there  came  a  small  tug,  with 
the  same  smokestack  as  that  of  our  steamer, 
and  a  conversation  started  between  our  cap- 
tain and  an  inspector  of  the  line.  I  heard  the 
words  that  passed  between  them  in  Italian, 
and  threw  back  my  head  and  laughed. 

"What  is  it,  mademoiselle?"  asked  a 
French  colonel  sitting  beside  me. 

"We  cannot  land,"  I  explained.  Though 
I  had  laughed,  I  was  bitterly  disappointed. 
I  felt  as  a  mother  must  when  her  baby  mis- 
behaves before  her  friends. 

"Why  can  we  not  land?" 

For  a  minute  I  doubted  whether  it  would 
be  wise  for  me  to  speak.  Of  the  thirty-five 
passengers  I  was  the  only  one  who  knew 

3 


Italian,  and  therefore,  in  spite  of  the  loud 
conversation,  I  was  the  only  one  who  had 
understood  what  passed  between  the  captain 
and  the  inspector. 

"You  wished  to  see  the  Bosphorus  the 
first  day,"  I  said  at  length  to  the  Frenchman. 
"Your  wish  will  be  granted:  we  are  going 
now  to  the  head  of  the  Bosphorus." 

"But  why  do  we  not  land  here?" 

"Colonel,  after  I  have  answered  you,  let 
my  words  remain  yours  alone."  I  pointed  to 
the  city,  every  minute  growing  lovelier,  and 
gave  him  the  one  horrid  word —  "Plague!" 

The  Frenchman  turned  pale.  "Not  really, 
mademoiselle?" 

I  nodded.  "Just  so!  Only  don't  let  it 
worry  you  in  the  least.  I  have  lived  through 
many  plagues  here;  for  it  comes  yearly,  and 
its  duration  depends  entirely  on  the  amount 
of  money  needed  to  be  extracted  from  the 
imperial  treasury." 

It  was  natural  that  the  Frenchman  should 
look  at  me  as  if  I  were  losing  my  mind.  It 

4 


takes  a  lifetime  to  understand  many  things  in 
Turkey:  it  takes  generations  to  understand 
the  political  machinations.  The  press  is  not 
permitted  to  publish  the  news;  and  by  the 
time  plain  facts  have  passed  through  the 
tenth  mouth,  they  have  borrowed  such  gor- 
geous hues  of  phantasy  that  it  takes  a  seer  to 
discover  the  original  grain  of  truth.  The 
Oriental  —  forbidden  the  truth  —  finds  so- 
lace in  the  magnificence  of  his  inventions. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  the  Frenchman 
asked  again.  For  three  years  he  had  been 
in  command  of  the  smallest  fortress  in  the 
world,  which  is  on  the  island  of  Crete.  He 
had  flown  the  five  flags  of  the  powers  over 
his  tiny  fortifications,  and  thought  he  knew 
Turkey  and  the  Turks  —  as  foreigners  do, 
who  have  lived  in  the  Sultan's  dominion  for 
a  time.  But  I  was  a  Turkish  subject,  and  we 
had  been  Turkish  subjects  ever  since  there 
had  been  Turks  in  Europe. 

"I  mean  this,"  I  replied.  "Money  is 
needed  by  the  officials.  The  public  treasury 

5 


is  empty.  The  Sultan  hugs  his  own  —  as 
usual  over-filled.  He  can  be  made  to  give 
a  little,  if  frightened,  and  the  plague  does 
frighten  him :  not  the  actual  disease,  but  the 
quarantining,  and  the  complaints  of  the 
foreign  powers.  So  he  will  dole  out  money 
to  clean  the  city.  A  little  of  this  will  be  spent 
on  cleaning  —  the  rest  will  go  to  the  inter- 
ested officials.  If  the  Sultan  does  not  give 
enough  at  first,  the  plague  will  continue  until 
he  gives  the  necessary  amount.  I  know  a 
Greek  gentleman  into  whose  pocket  a  little 
of  that  money  will  go.  He  holds  quite  an 
exalted  governmental  position,  but  the  gov- 
ernment has  forgotten  to  pay  him  for  the  last 
ten  or  fifteen  years." 

While  we  were  talking,  our  boat  was  steam- 
ing on,  and  the  marvellous  Bosphorus  began 
to  show  us  its  beauties.  Its  hills  — those  never- 
to-be-forgotten  hills  —  appeared  now  green, 
now  violet,  then  purple,  and  again  blue.  I 
have  watched  them  for  years,  and  they  are 
never  alike.  They  are  small  or  large,  straight- 

6 


lined  or  full  of  curves,  according  to  the  light, 
and  the  hour,  and  the  season.  And  the  deep 
blue  sky  hangs  low  over  them,  loving  them ; 
and  it  gives  to  the 'waters  of  the  Bosphorus 
its  own  blue  tint,  and  makes  of  them  living 
waters,  as  they  hurry  on  to  the  Mediterranean. 

At  the  very  end  of  the  Bosphorus,  where 
there  were  no  houses,  —  nothing  but  a  bar- 
ren rock,  —  the  steamer  stopped,  and  its  little 
boats  dumped  us  on  shore.  Then  it  went 
away,  having  escaped  the  quarantining  in 
Russia,  which  would  have  been  its  fate  had 
it  touched  at  an  infected  port. 

We  waited  here  for  several  hours,  all  three 
classes  of  passengers  mixed  indiscriminately 
together.  The  others  fumed  and  fretted,  but 
I  was  quite  content.  In  Turkey  I  forget  the 
value  of  time.  Every  minute  of  living  there 
is  joy;  why  hurry  it  by? 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  wrhen  a  small 
steamer  called  for  us,  and  we  went  down  the 
Bosphorus.  And  now,  in  the  waning  light, 
the  river  had  changed  again,  and  in  its  new 

7 


beauties  even  the  other  passengers  forgot 
hunger,  thirst,  fatigue,  and  indignation.  As 
we  drew  near  Stamboul,  Saint  Sophia  rose 
above  the  other  mosques,  and  against  the 
dark  blue  sky  seemed  to  me  more  gigantic 
than  when  I  saw  it  last.  I  thought  of  its  mys- 
terious, closed  door,  of  which  every  Greek 
child  learns  in  infancy.  I  had  first  seen  that 
door  with  the  believing  eyes  of  childhood, 
for  which  no  myth  is  unreal.  Later,  I  had 
seen  it  with  the  eyes  of  the  grown-up  girl, 
whose  soul  begins  to  doubt  the  world,  and 
whose  mind  Occidental  education  renders 
sceptical.  But  think  as  I  might,  —  even  now, 
after  six  years  of  work  in  practical  America, 
-  that  little  door  to  me,  as  to  all  Greeks, 
contained  the  hope  of  our  race.  No  matter 
where  we  may  have  been  born,  nor  where  our 
ancestors  may  have  been  born,  that  closed 
little  door  means  everything  to  all  those  in 
whose  veins  flows  the  blood  which  belongs  to 
Greece,  and  which,  when  the  time  comes, 
must  be  shed  for  the  freedom  of  the  greater 


Greece,  still  under  the  yoke  of  Turkey  —  for 
Macedonia,  for  Albania,  for  Thrace,  for 
Thessaly,  for  all  the  Greek  islands,  and, 
above  all,  for  Constantinople. 

Here  is  the  myth,  which  has  been  repeated 
to  every  Greek  child  for  nearly  five  hundred 
years :  That  door  has  not  been  opened  since 
the  fatal  day  the  Turkish  army  entered 
Constantinople  in  1453,  when  Constantinos 
Paleologos,  the  last  Greek  Emperor,  fell  de- 
fending his  capital. 

It  was  on  an  Easter  Sunday,  and  the 
clergy  were  officiating  in  Saint  Sophia. 
When  the  cry  rang  through  the  church  that 
Mahomet  II  had  taken  the  city,  the  clergy, 
grasping  the  bejewelled  Bible,  which  had 
been  in  Saint  Sophia  since  the  Bible  was  put 
together,  and  the  Communion  Cup,  rushed 
into  the  little  side  room,  and  closed  the  door 
behind  them.  It  has  never  been  opened  since, 
in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  the  Turks ;  and  we 
children  of  the  Greeks  are  told  that,  before 
the  door  closed  the  Bishop  of  Constantinople 

9 


said  that  he  would  come  out  and  finish  the 
Holy  Liturgy  on  the  day  when  a  Greek  army 
should  march  back  into  Constantinople 
again,  and  give  it  to  its  rightful  ruler  and  its 
own  religion. 

This  is  the  story  of  the  little  closed  door. 
Told  to  us  in  our  cradles,  we  implicitly  be- 
lieve it  for  years,  —  and,  who  knows,  in  spite 
of  the  scepticism  of  the  age,  perhaps  we  be- 
lieve it  until  we  die.  All  I  know  is  that  I  never 
look  at  Saint  Sophia  without  thinking  of  the 
little  door  and  what  it  stands  for,  and  never 
go  into  the  magnificent  building  without  go- 
ing to  look  at  it,  —  just  as  I  always  go  to  see 
the  Venus  of  Milo  in  the  Louvre.  Deep  in 
my  heart  is  the  belief  that  to  be  as  beautiful 
as  she  is,  and  to  have  lived  so  many  centuries 
commanding  the  admiration  of  the  world, 
something  immortal  from  the  soul  of  Prax- 
iteles must  have  passed  into  the  statue.  And 
because  of  that  thought  I  cannot  help  feeling 
that  the  beautiful  statue  on  its  pedestal,  in 
that  cold,  dark  place,  must  be  unhappy  and 

10 


homesick ;  and  as  soon  as  I  am  in  Paris  I  go 
and  stand  by  her  railing.  When  we  are  left 
alone,  she  and  I,  I  speak  to  her  in  Greek.  I 
tell  her  of  all  the  doings  of  the  Greeks,  and 
little  by  little,  as  if  a  ray  of  the  Attic  sun  were 
falling  on  the  white  marble,  the  whiteness 
softens;  it  becomes  mellower,  yellower,  and 
alive,  —  as  the  marble  is  in  Greece,  —  until 
I  can  see  her  shiver.  The  immortal  spark  in 
her  is  awake.  The  beauty  of  the  face  becomes 
human,  the  lips  move,  and  she  speaks.  But 
what  she  says  is  only  for  her  and  me  —  per- 
haps it  is  of  the  day  when  the  little  door  in 
Saint  Sophia  will  open,  and  the  holy  mass 
will  be  finished,  and  the  Greeks,  again 
leaders  of  the  world,  will  gather  up  all  our 
exiles  and  bring  them  back  to  live  under 
the  sky  of  Hellas. 

I  came  out  of  my  dreams  when  we  ap- 
proached the  Galata  Bridge  landing,  and 
disembarked,  not  into  a  Christian  Constanti- 
nople, but  a  Mussulman.  Yet  I  do  not  hate 
the  Turks  as  many  Greeks  do.  On  the  con- 

ii 


trary,  I  love  them ;  for  I  know  all  their  good 
points  and  their  virtues.  Moreover,  they 
conquered  us  fairly,  because  our  race  had 
decayed.  It  is  our  task  to  deserve  to  rule 
again  for  something  besides  the  memories  of 
our  splendid  past. 

It  was  very  natural,  coming  home  to  Tur- 
key. I  was  born  a  Turkish  subject,  and  as 
such  I  returned.  I  found  nothing  changed. 
Everything  was  as  I  had  left  it ;  and  when  I 
met  my  mother,  we  finished  the  argument  I 
had  so  cavalierly  interrupted  six  years  before. 

Yet,  though  nothing  else  had  changed,  I 
had.  I  returned  to  my  native  land  with  new 
ideas,  and  a  mind  full  of  Occidental  ques- 
tioning, and  I  meant  to  find  out  things. 
Many  of  my  childhood  friends  had  been 
Turkish  girls:  them  I  now  looked  upon  with 
new  interest.  Before,  I  had  taken  them  and 
their  way  of  living  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Generations  of  my  ancestors  had  prepared 
me  for  them,  and  I  had  lived  among  them, 
looking  upon  their  customs  and  habits  as 

12 


quite  as  natural  as  my  own.  But  during  my 
stay  in  America  I  heard  Turkey  spoken  of 
with  hatred  and  scorn,  the  Turks  reviled  as 
despicable,  their  women  as  miserable  crea- 
tures, living  in  practical  slavery  for  the  base 
desires  of  men.  I  had  stood  bewildered  at 
this  talk.  Could  it  possibly  be  as  the  Ameri- 
cans said,  and  I  never  have  known  it? 

Now,  I  was  to  see  for  myself,  and  not  only 
to  see  but  to  talk  with  the  women,  to  ask 
them  their  thoughts  about  their  lives  and 
their  customs. 

When  I  went  away  from  Turkey  I  was  but 
a  young  girl,  an  idealist,  believing  implicitly 
in  the  goodness  of  the  wrorld.  I  was  now  six 
years  older,  and  I  knew  the  world  as  a  girl 
has  to  learn  it  who  is  suddenly  thrown  on  her 
own  resources  in  a  strange  land.  Out  of  that 
experience  I  was  going  to  study  the  Turkish 
women  who  had  been  my  friends  in  my  girl- 
hood. Naturally  I  was  delighted,  only  a  few 
days  after  my  arrival,  to  receive  the  following 
letter :  — 

13 


Beloved  One,  from  a  far-away  country  come  : 

Do  you  remember  your  young  friends ;  or 
have  books  and  knowledge  within  them  made 
your  formerly  dear  heart  like  a  bookcase  ?  If 
you  still  love  us,  come  to  see  us. 

Two  loving  hearts,  and  the  little  buds  that 
have  sprung  from  them. 

NASSARAH  and  TSAKRAN,  their  buds,  and 
their  gardener. 

This  little  letter,  with  its  English  words  and 
Turkish  phraseology,  set  me  dreaming  of  the 
many  hours  they  and  I  had  spent  happily 
together  on  the  shores  of  the  Bosphorus, 
before  I  came  to  America.  And  I  \vas  filled 
with  curiosity  to  see  how  two  girls  whom  I 
had  known  so  intimately  could  dwell  in  such 
apparent  happiness,  while  sharing  the  love 
of  a  husband  between  them.  A  few  days 
later  a  male  slave  came  for  me  and  my  trunk, 
to  pay  a  visit  to  the  two  roses,  their  buds,  and 
their  gardener,  who  lived  some  distance  away 
in  Dolma  Baktshe. 

14 


I  arrived  at  their  house  a  little  before  lunch 
time.  A  French  maid  received  me  and  helped 
me  off  with  my  wraps,  and  then  a  slave  con- 
ducted me  to  the  Turkish  bath,  that  I  might 
rid  myself  entirely  of  the  dust  and  fatigue  of 
the  short  journey.  After  I  had  been  thor- 
oughly scrubbed  and  put  into  clean  clothes, 
another  slave  brought  me  a  cup  of  black 
coffee ;  and  only  after  these  preliminaries  did 
my  hostesses  burst  into  my  room,  as  if  I  had 
just  arrived.  It  is  a  blessed  custom  which 
permits  guests  to  be  cleaned  and  refreshed 
before  meeting  their  hosts.  I  had  lived  so 
long  in  a  civilized  country  that  I  had  for- 
gotten how  much  more  civilized,  in  some 
respects,  uncivilized  Turkey  is. 

Nassarah  and  Tsakran,  though  married 
and  the  mothers  of  two  children  each,  were 
as  gay  and  full  of  life  as  when  they  and  I 
rolled  hoops  along  the  Bosphorus  and  cast 
pebbles  into  it.  They  looked  like  sisters, 
and  very  loving  ones.  One  was  clad  in  a 
loose  pink  silk  garment,  the  other  in  rich 


yellow,  and  both  had  their  dark  hair  dressed 
with  pale  pink  plumes.  They  seized  me  and 
nearly  carried  me  into  their  living-room, 
made  of  glass  and  called  yally  kiosky,  "glass 
pavilion."  There  we  reclined  on  low  divans 
and  talked  for  a  few  minutes  before  luncheon 
was  announced. 

The  dining-room  was  not  different  from  a 
European  dining-room.  I  gave  a  sigh  for 
the  good  old  times  when  the  Turks  used  to 
sit  with  their  feet  curled  under  them  and  eat 
with  the  ten  forks  and  spoons  that  nature 
had  provided  them  with,  maintaining  that 
taste  is  first  transmitted  through  the  finger- 
tips. However,  nothing  of  the  delicious  food 
itself  was  European,  and  I  was  delighted  to 
see  the  courses  brought  on  in  brass  trays 
carried  on  the  heads  of  the  slaves.  When  the 
meal  was  finished  a  slave  came  in  carrying 
a  brass  wash-basin.  Another  followed  with  a 
graceful  brass  pitcher  of  water;  and  still  a 
third  followed  with  soap,  perfumes,  and  towels 
—  and  we  might  just  as  well  have  eaten  with 
16 


our  fingers  after  all.  When  we  were  again 
seated,  or  rather  reclining,  in  the  yally  kiosky, 
I  said :  — 

"Now  talk  to  me." 

Nassarah  took  some  tobacco  with  her 
slender  fingers  and  rolled  a  cigarette,  which 
she  passed  to  the  second  wife  of  her  husband. 
Rolling  one  for  herself,  she  coaxed  the  flame 
of  a  match  between  her  palms  and  lighted 
them.  Then  she  turned  to  me. 

"What  would  you  like  me  to  tell  you,  Al- 
lah's beloved?"  she  asked. 

"Tell  me  about  your  marriage  and  how 
you  both  happened  to  get  the  same  husband," 
I  said  impertinently. 

At  that  both  began  to  giggle,  and  embrace 
each  other,  and  make  funny  faces,  like  two 
children. 

"Tell  her,  Nassarah,"  said  Tsakran,  "tell 
her!" 

Most  Turkish  women  are  natural  come- 
dians, and  Nassarah  had  been  a  capital  one 
from  her  childhood.  She  looked  about  her, 

17 


taking  in  her  audience,  which  consisted, 
besides  Tsakran  and  myself,  of  about  ten 
young  slaves,  a  sort  of  ladies  in  attendance. 
Then,  as  if  she  were  a  miradju  about  to  tell  a 
story,  she  began  with  their  customary  words : 

"The  beginning  of  the  tale !  Good  evening, 
most  honorable  company!" 

All  giggled  delightedly  at  this. 

"When  I  married  Hilmi  Pasha  I  was  so 
much  in  love  with  him  I  was  nearly  crazy.  I 
could  not  go  to  sleep,  but  just  lay  there  while 
he  slept,  and  watched  him,  and  - 

"Oh,  you  must  see  him,"  the  second  wife 
burst  in.  "  He  is  an  ideal  lover !  Blond,  with 
blue  eyes,  and  such  a  lovely  mustache;  and 
tall,  with  such  a  beautiful  figure!"  And 
thereupon  she  jumped  up  and  began  to  walk 
up  and  down,  to  give  me  an  idea  of  Hilmi 
Pasha's  lordly  gait. 

Nassarah  grabbed  her,  however,  and 
pulled  her  back  to  her  divan. 

"Keep  quiet!"  she  said.  "I  am  telling 
the  story." 

18 


Tsakran  made  a  face  at  her  suppression, 
and  then  gave  a  kiss  to  the  other  wife. 

"I  was  telling  you,"  Nassarah  went  on, 
"that  I  was  so  much  in  love  I  could  not  sleep. 
A  year  later  my  girl,  my  Zelma,  was  born, 
and  I  was  more  and  more  in  love  with  my 
lord." 

At  this  point  she  threw  herself  on  her 
knees,  laid  her  arms  on  the  floor,  bent  her 
head  down  on  them,  and  prayed  aloud  that 
Allah  might  never  permit  her  to  live  to  see 
sorrow  fall  on  her  master.  Tsakran  and  the 
slaves  did  the  same,  and  for  a  few  minutes 
the  room  was  filled  with  their  wailing  voices. 
But  this  did  not  last  long,  and  then,  as  cheer- 
fully as  ever,  Nassarah  Hanoum  continued : 

"Then  my  other  little  girl  came,  and  I 
suffered  —  oh !  how  I  suffered !  And  the 
learned  doctor  was  called  in,  and  he  said 
I  should  live,  but  no  more  children  for  me. 
And  I  had  no  boy!  No,  no  boy  for  my 
Hilmi  Pasha!  Just  then  Tsakran  came  to 
see  me." 

19 


The  mention  of  the  auspicious  visit  was 
too  much  for  the  two  wives,  and  again  they 
fell  upon  each  other's  necks,  giggling  and 
kissing. 

"It  was  then  I  thought  of  a  plan,  and  told 
Tsakran  of  it.  I  was  not  going  to  let  Hilmi 
Pasha  die  without  a  son.  Here  was  Tsak- 
ran, young  and  beautiful,  and  ready  to  marry ; 
for  she  knew  what  a  good  lord  Hilmi  is." 

Tsakran  nodded  at  me  violently. 

"That  night,  when  Hilmi  Pasha's  most 
beautiful  head  was  resting  on  a  most  white 
pillow,  I  put  my  arms  around  his  neck  and 
told  him  my  plan,  and  talked  and  talked,  so 
that  next  day  it  was  arranged  that  Tsakran 
was  to  be  made  ready  to  marry  my  Hilmi." 

She  made  an  oratorical  pause,  and  looked 
around  her.  "Allah  rewarded  us,"  she  said. 
"Two  boys  have  been  born,  the  one  within 
two  years  of  the  other." 

At  this  point  in  the  narrative  a  slave  an- 
nounced Hilmi  Pasha.  The  ladies  in  attend- 
ance all  rose,  bowed,  and  went  out. 

20 


I  barely  remembered  Hilmi  Pasha,  al- 
though I  had  known  him  before  I  went  away 
from  Turkey.  When  he  came  in,  he  kissed 
his  first  wife  first,  then  his  second,  and  it 
seemed  to  me  that  there  was  a  difference  in 
his  manner  to  the  two,  the  first  kiss  being 
that  of  a  lover,  the  second  that  of  an  older 
man  to  a  pet  child. 

He  talked  with  me  concerning  affairs  in 
America.  It  was  just  after  the  assassina- 
tion of  President  McKinley.  All  the  papers 
printed  in  Turkey  were  only  permitted  to  say 
that  he  had  died  of  indigestion.  The  news 
of  the  murder  of  a  ruler  can  never  be  printed 
in  Turkey,  because  it  is  supposed  to  put  ideas 
into  the  heads  of  the  malcontents.  How- 
ever, every  one  in  Turkey  who  counted  at 
all  knew  the  truth  about  McKinley  and 
discussed  it. 

Hilmi  Pasha  expressed  his  astonishment 
at  the  inability  of  the  American  govern- 
ment to  suppress  the  anarchists.  "Isn't  he 
the  third  one  they  have  killed?"  he  asked. 

21 


I  explained  that  Lincoln  and  Garfield  were 
not  killed  by  anarchists,  but  Hilmi  Pasha 
only  smiled  as  much  as  to  say,  —  in  our 
slang,  —  "What  are  you  giving  us?"  In 
Turkey  the  truth  about  public  matters  is  so 
often  suppressed  that  he  thought  I  had  some 
reason  for  not  telling  it  now. 

Since  his  two  wives  could  hardly  follow 
a  conversation  on  American  politics,  Hilmi 
Pasha  turned  to  Nassarah  and  asked  her  if 
she  had  finished  her  French  novel.  From 
that  the  talk  drifted  to  French  literature  com- 
pared to  English  and  American.  In  the 
midst  of  our  conversation  a  slave  brought  in 
two  backgammon  boards,  handsomely  inlaid 
with  ivory,  and  placed  them  on  low  tables 
similarly  inlaid.  Then  we  played  this  game 
so  universal  in  Turkey,  Hilmi  Pasha  playing 
first  with  me,  then  with  his  first,  and  then 
with  his  second  wife. 

The  children  came  in  next  and  were  all 
kissed  by  their  father,  beginning  with  the 
eldest,  a  beautiful  girl  with  light  hair  and 

22 


dark  eyes,  named  Zelma  after  the  heroine 
of  a  French  novel. 

I  stayed  visiting  my  friends  for  ten  days. 
In  the  morning  we  would  get  up  and  spend 
a  good  part  of  the  forenoon  in  the  Turkish 
bath  together.  After  luncheon  we  \vould  lie 
about  on  couches,  reading,  and  playing  cards 
and  backgammon,  or  listening  to  the  dra- 
matic or  spicy  tales  of  the  miradjus,  the  pro- 
fessional women  story-tellers.  Then  we  would 
go  for  long  walks,  and  sit  on  the  hilltops  to 
watch  the  sun  set. 

One  day  they  proposed  that  I  should  ac- 
company them  on  a  visit  to  a  friend  of  theirs 
some  seven  hours  distant.  I  accepted,  on 
condition  that  they  would  travel  in  the  regu- 
lar Turkish  fashion  and  not  in  broughams. 
They  joyously  agreed,  and  the  next  morning 
two  large,  springless  wagons,  covered  like 
prairie  schooners,  were  waiting  at  the  door. 
Their  floors  were  covered  with  thick  mat- 
tresses, and  wives,  slaves,  and  children  all 
climbed  in,  and  we  were  off. 

23 


Halfway  on  our  journey  we  ate  luncheon 
by  a  fountain  in  a  little  valley  finely  culti- 
vated as  a  market  garden.  There  were  with 
us  a  eunuch  and  two  slaves  whose  especial 
duty  it  was  to  sing  and  play  to  enliven  the 
journey.  I  was  dressed  in  Turkish  fashion, 
to  avoid  causing  remark  from  other  travellers, 
and  for  comfort. 

At  the  end  of  our  journey  we  were  received 
in  a  large  bedroom,  where  slave  women  un- 
dressed us  and  took  us  to  the  bathing-house 
on  the  shore  of  the  sea.  After  the  bath,  we 
were  put  in  loose,  clean  garments  lent  us  by 
the  mistress  of  the  house.  Thus  attired,  we 
next  came  to  the  waiting-room,  where  the 
hostess  received  us.  She  was  middle-aged, 
and  from  her  deeply  dyed  finger-nails  I  knew 
that  she  was  of  the  old  school.  She  spoke 
nothing  except  Turkish,  but  that  with  a  vol- 
ubility to  frighten  a  lawyer.  Her  waiting- 
room  was  very  old-fashioned.  A  settle  ran 
around  two  sides  of  the  room,  covered  with 
hard  cushions.  There  were  no  chairs.  We 

24 


all  sat  in  a  row,  with  our  feet  curled  under 
us,  and  drank  sherbet.  Two  copper-colored 
slaves  came  in,  very  lightly  clothed,  and 
danced  a  Circassian  dance.  Then  an  old 
miradju  told  us  a  story.  The  miradjus  play 
an  important  part  in  old-fashioned  harem 
life.  Some  of  them  have  great  imaginative 
power,  invent  their  own  stories,  and  attain 
to  considerable  fame,  as  a  writer  does  with 
us.  Others  merely  repeat  what  they  have 
been  taught,  though  they  may  embellish  it 
by  their  personality  in  reciting,  as  an  actor 
embellishes  his  part. 

The  story  that  day  was  the  well-known  one 
of  Dere  Vere,  a  rather  Boccaccian  tale,  that 
pointed  a  strong  moral,  however.  Our  prose 
troubadour  put  marvellous  facial  expression 
into  her  rendering  of  it,  and  kept  her  audi- 
ence of  some  twenty-five  women  deeply  in- 
terested. When  she  finished  we  all  exclaimed, 
" Mashalah  .'  Mashalah  .'"  in  admiration  and 
applause.  When  this  was  over,  dinner  was 
served  in  the  garden,  which  was  surrounded 

25 


by  a  high  wall.  We  sat  on  the  grass,  and  ate 
from  low  tables. 

I  learned  that  night,  from  Nassarah  and 
Tsakran,  that  our  hostess  was  the  fourth  wife 
of  a  very  rich  pasha.  She  was  reputed  an 
extremely  clever  talker,  which  counts  for  a 
great  deal  in  Turkey.  She  could  not,  how- 
ever, get  along  with  the  other  three  wives,— 
it  may  be  by  reason  of  her  gift, — and  there- 
fore she  lived  by  herself  with  her  retinue. 
She  had  two  grown  sons,  both  in  the  army, 
and  was  very  anxious  to  make  a  marriage 
between  her  youngest  son  and  Nassarah's 
eldest  daughter.  This  proposed  alliance 
kept  the  two  families  in  close  friendship, 
and  although  Zelma  was  still  several  years 
too  young  to  marry,  she  called  our  hostess 
"mother,"  and  treated  her  with  great  cere- 
mony. 

We  stayed  there  three  days,  and  I  met 
several  friends  of  the  old  Hanoum.  Turkish 
women  do  not  make  our  abominable  ab- 
breviated calls.  When  they  call,  they  bring 

26 


their  work  and  spend  the  day.  They  are 
clever  needle-workers,  and  some  of  them 
imitate  flowers  wonderfully  in  their  embroid- 
ery. Naturally  they  were  very  curious  about 
America,  and  I  told  them  much  of  woman's 
position  here.  In  their  expressive  faces  I 
read  their  pity  for  them,  and  inwardly  I 
smiled  as  I  thought  of  the  pity  that  American 
women  feel  for  them. 

We  made  the  return  trip  on  a  beautiful 
moonlight  night.  When  we  came  to  start  we 
found  our  wagons  festooned  with  purple  and 
yellow  wistaria.  To  make  the  journey  pleas- 
anter,  our  hostess  and  her  retinue  accom- 
panied us  halfway,  bringing  also  a  wagon 
full  of  Armenian  hanendbs,  men  musicians, 
to  play  and  sing  to  us. 

Thus  in  my  first  harem  visit  I  saw  nothing 
but  pleasant  relations  existing  between  the 
various  women  dwelling  under  the  same 
roof.  It  is  true  that  both  Nassarah  and  Tsak- 
ran  were  sweet,  commonplace  young  women 

27 


—  not  very  different  by  nature  from  many 
commonplace  American  friends  I  have, 
whose  lives  are  spent  with  dressmakers, 
manicures,  masseuses,  and  in  various  frivo- 
lous pursuits.  With  these  two  young  women 
and  their  friends  I  had  a  peaceful  and  pleas- 
ant time.  Except  for  the  absence  of  men  I 
might  almost  have  been  visiting  an  American 
household.  What  difference  existed  was  to 
the  advantage  of  the  Turkish  girls.  They 
were  entirely  natural  and  spontaneous.  They 
did  not  pretend  to  be  anything  that  they  were 
not.  They  were  as  happy  and  merry  as  little 
brooks,  whose  usefulness  was  limited,  but 
who  at  least  had  no  aspirations  to  pass  for 
rivers.  They  were  good  mothers,  and  made 
one  man  blissfully  happy.  They  read  a  lot  of 
French  novels,  without  pretending  that  they 
did  it  for  the  sake  of  "culture."  They  took 
everything  naturally,  and  enjoyed  it  natu- 
rally. There  was  no  unwholesome  introspec- 
tion —  that  horrible  attribute  of  the  average 
half-educated  European  and  American  \vo- 
28 


man.  They  never  dreamed  of  setting  the 
world  aright ;  and  when  I  talked  cant  to  them 
to  see  how  they  would  take  it,  they  looked 
at  me  in  bewilderment,  then  laughed  and 
exclaimed:  — 

"  Why,  little  blossom !  Allah  meant  women 
to  be  beautiful  and  good;  to  be  true  wives, 
and  real  mothers.  Is  n't  that  enough  for  a 
mere  woman?" 

I  went  away  from  them  with  the  regret  with 
which  one  leaves  something  good  and  whole- 
some, but  also  I  was  disappointed.  I  wanted 
to  see  something  new  and  different;  I  wanted 
to  discuss  and  vivisect  —  and  Nassarah  and 
Tsakran  were  too  healthy  and  happy  for 
that.  My  next  visit,  however,  was  of  quite 
another  character.  In  it  I  went  beneath  the 
surface  as  far  as  I  could  wish. 


II 

MIHIRMAH 

IT  had  been  hot  all  day  long,  oppressively 
so;  and  even  now  that  it  was  dark,  the  heat 
had  not  relented.  Pera,  that  city  of  curious 
noises,  was  sending  up  to  me  the  echoing 
shouts  of  its  venders.  In  Constantinople  the 
small  merchants  carry  their  wares  on  their 
backs,  and  advertise  their  quality  by  power 
of  lung.  To  the  conglomeration  of  advertis- 
ing tunes  was  added  the  shrill  monotonous 
barking  of  the  world-famed  dogs,  who  bark, 
apparently,  with  the  simple  desire  of  adding 
to  the  noises  of  the  hot  city;  for  they  bark 
even  when  eating. 

The  mixture  of  sounds  about  me  was 
rapidly  depressing  me,  when  a  servant  came 
into  my  room,  stumbled  over  a  chair,  in  the 
semi-obscurity,  and  handed  me  a  note. 

"A  slave,  mademoiselle,  brought  it,  and 
is  waiting  for  an  answer." 

30 


A  slave !  The  word  was  poetry.  It  opened 
a  vista  of  large,  bare  Turkish  rooms,  of  low, 
linen-covered  divans,  of  filmy  clothes,  bare 
feet,  absolute  inaction,  cooling  sherbets  — 
and  of  quiet.  I  opened  the  note  and,  with  the 
help  of  a  candle,  read :  — 

LITTLE  CHERRY  BLOSSOM  :  — 

The  wind  brings  me  joyous  news  of  your 
sweet  presence  in  our  miserable  city.  No  won- 
der the  sky  is  bluer  and  the  scent  of  the  flowers 
sweeter.  Will  you  not,  Allah's  beloved,  glad- 
den a  human  heart  by  your  luminous  presence  ? 
Come  to  me  !  Hasten  to  my  bosom,  so  that  I 
may  tell  you  how  happy  I  shall  be  to  see  you 
again.  I  live  now  at  C hartal.  Tell  me  the 
train  which  will  be  honored  by  you,  and  slaves 
will  meet  you. 

MlHIRMAH. 

"Well,"  I  muttered  to  myself,  "I  am  glad 
she  does  not  attribute  this  intense  heat  to  my 
luminous  presence."  And  to  her  flowery  note 
I  scribbled  an  answer  in  pencil,  on  the  back 


of  my  card,  telling  her  that  I  would  come  to 
her  on  the  next  afternoon  boat. 

And  it  was  at  the  quaint  landing  of  Asiatic 
Chartal  that  a  spacious  ox-wagon  met  me; 
and,  contrary  to  all  Ottoman  etiquette,  it  was 
my  hostess  herself  who  was  there  to  receive 
me,  —  Mihirmah,  in  a  loose,  pale-blue  silk 
garment,  looking  as  cool  as  the  European 
women  looked  hot  and  uncomfortable  in  their 
tight  clothes. 

"Dear  little  thunder-storm,  do  forgive  me 
for  coming  myself,"  she  begged,  while  we 
were  embracing.  "I  had  to  come.  But  you 
shall  be  left  alone  to  rest  as  soon  as  we  reach 
home." 

The  word  "thunder-storm''  made  me 
laugh.  "Mihirmah,  dear,  I  haven't  heard 
that  name  applied  to  me  for  years.  Horrible 
as  it  sounds,  and  great  a  reflection  as  it  is  on 
my  temper,  yet  it  does  me  good  to  hear  it." 

"  Why !  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  don't 
get  angry  any  more  when  poor  Turkish  chil- 
dren wish  to  oppose  you?" 

32 


"  You  forget  that  I  don't  live  among  Turk- 
ish people  any  more." 

"Well,  you  are  among  them  now,  praise 
be  to  Allah!" 

With  that  we  stepped  into  the  ox-wagon. 
There  we  reclined  on  the  soft  mattresses, 
while  the  dark  silk  curtains  with  their  gold 
tassels  flapped  in  and  out,  a  kind  of  Eastern 
electric  fan  —  primitive,  but  very  attractive. 

After  a  drive  of  a  mile  and  a  half  through 
streets  as  yet  unspoiled  by  Europeans,  we 
came  to  Mihirmah's  dwelling.  It  was  a  ram- 
bling old  structure,  half  stucco  and  half  wood, 
and,  like  most  Turkish  houses,  surrounded 
by  an  immense  old-fashioned  garden,  in- 
closed by  a  tall  wall.  The  house  was  almost 
overhanging  the  sea  of  the  Propontis,  and  not 
far  from  the  house  were  tents,  where  one 
could  camp  out  at  a  moment's  notice. 

All  the  slaves  were  in  the  hall,  as  we  en- 
tered, and  threw  rose-blossoms  over  us.  My 
hostess  turned  to  a  pretty  young  slave  of 
about  fifteen,  and  said :  — 

33 


"Guselli  [beauty]  here  is  your  mistress. 
You  are  to  love  her  as  you  love  your  own 
face,  and  to  take  care  of  her  as  if  she  were 
your  own  eyes." 

With  this  she  kissed  me  and  went  away. 
All  the  slaves  followed  her,  bowing  to  the 
floor,  and  kissing  their  fingers  to  tell  me  that 
I  was  welcome.  Guselli  and  I  were  left  alone 
to  bathe  and  to  rest. 

When  I  opened  my  eyes  a  few  hours  later, 
I  was  covered  with  flowers,  and  my  hostess 
was  leaning  over  me,  coaxing  me  to  awake. 

"You  lazy  little  thunder-storm,  I  have 
been  sitting  here  waiting  to  welcome  you 
formally  to  my  home,  and  you  have  allowed 
your  spirit  to  wander  thousands  of  miles 
from  here.  Get  up,  and  let  us  go  to  the  gar- 
den, where  dinner  has  been  waiting  for  us 
ever  so  long." 

As  I  played  with  the  flowers  I  also  ex- 
amined  my  hostess,   clad   in  a  yellow   silk 
enlere,  her  throat  bare,  and  her  head  adorned 
with  amber  beads. 
34 


"My  dear,"  I  exclaimed,  "do  you  know 
that  you  have  more  than  fulfilled  your  pro- 
mise? You  are  stunning." 

"I  know  it,"  she  said  simply.  She  lifted 
me  to  my  feet.  "But  now  we  must  run!" 

And  run  we  did,  down  to  a  part  of  the 
garden  overhanging  the  sea.  There  our  din- 
ner was  served,  beneath  the  light  of  Chinese 
lanterns,  while  the  soothing  waves  of  the 
Propontis  rhythmically  lapped  the  foot  of 
our  garden  wall. 

So  far  I  knew  absolutely  nothing  of  Mihir- 
mah's  grown-up  life.  I  had  seen  nothing  of 
her  for  ten  years.  We  had  been  friends  in 
childhood,  and  even  after  she  had  gone  from 
Constantinople  to  Broussa  to  live,  we  had 
written  to  each  other  for  several  years.  That 
night,  when  we  were  comfortably  settled  in 
her  room,  I  asked  her :  — 

"Mihirmah,  tell  me  all  about  yourself - 
and  how  did  you  find  out  that  I  was  here?" 

"Djimlah  told  me,  and  that  you  were 
going  to  stay  some  time  with  her.  And  I 

35 


thought  if  you  could  do  that,  you  might  also 
be  able  to  come  here  to  me,  little  white  lamb. 
And  you  do  love  me  as  much  as  ever,  do  you 
not?" 

I  reassured  her.  She  embraced  me  several 
times,  and  gave  me  assurance  of  her  own 
undying  affection;  then  asked:  "Now  tell 
me  how  the  world  has  treated  you?" 

"Treated  me!"  I  repeated,  knowing  that 
in  Oriental  eyes  matrimony  was  the  only 
treatment  worth  recording.  "It  hasn't 
treated  me  at  all.  I  am  earning  my  living." 

"My!  But  it  must  be  funny!"  Mihirmah 
cried. 

"It  is,  when  you  view  it  from  a  palace, 
writh  hordes  of  slaves  to  wait  on  you,  and 
fairylike  garments  to  adorn  you ;  but  it  is  not 
funny  when  you  walk  side  by  side  with  stern 
reality.  But  now  for  yourself.  Out  with  it! 
Are  you  married?" 

Mihirmah's  merry  face  clouded.  She  was 
no  longer  the  gay  and  reckless  girl  of  a  mo- 
ment before. 

36 


"Yes,  little  heart,  I  am,"  she  said. 

I  knew  from  her  tone  that  there  was  sorrow 
in  connection  with  it.  "No  children?"  I 
asked.  "No  boys?" 

"Oh,  yes,  one  boy,  one  girl.  You  will  see 
them  to-morrow  —  perfect  beauties ! "  And 
in  her  maternal  pride  her  face  was  happy 
again. 

She  did  not  volunteer  more,  and  there 
was  no  use  my  trying  to  get  the  story  bit  by 
bit.  I  knew  Turkish  women  too  well.  When 
the  time  should  come  to  tell  me,  there  would 
be  no  necessity  for  questions.  It  would  be 
told  simply  and  frankly,  as  only  Turkish 
women  can  talk. 

Two  nights  later  I  heard  it.  All  clay  long 
Mihirmah  was  restless.  Upon  her  babies  and 
upon  me  she  lavished  an  immense  amount  of 
caresses.  She  proposed  various  excursions; 
yet  no  sooner  did  we  decide  upon  one  than 
the  plan  was  given  up  and  another  con- 
sidered. The  whole  household  was  affected 
by  her  mood.  There  was  no  singing  among 

37 


the  slaves,  no  chattering,  no  laughter.  Even 
the  children  sat  upon  the  rug  at  their  mother's 
feet  and  played  quietly.  The  boy,  a  dear  little 
fellow,  would  get  up  often,  throw  his  arms 
around  his  mother,  and  lisp:  "Mudder,  AH 
Bey,  the  little,  loves  his  mudder  —  loves 
her  ever  so  big."  Mihirmah  would  take  the 
child  in  her  arms,  kiss  him  wildly ;  then  hold 
him  away  from  her,  looking  into  his  eyes, 
and  sigh  deeply  as  she  put  him  back  on  the 
floor. 

At  night,  as  we  sat  together  by  the  latticed 
windows  and  inhaled  the  sea  air  mingled 
with  the  perfume  of  flowers,  Mihirmah 
said :  — 

"Little  thunder-storm,  when  do  you  think 
we  earn  the  right  to  live?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  never  thought  about  it. 
When  do  you  think  we  do?" 

"When  we  conceive  a  great  thought,  form 
a  great  wish,  and  perform  a  good  act.  I  have 
had  the  first  two,  but  I  never  had  the  last  — 
though   Allah  gave  me  the  chance  once." 

38 


Under  her  breath  she  added:  "Will  he  ever 
give  me  the  chance  again?" 

She  was  silent  for  several  minutes  after 
this.  I  waited  for  her  to  speak. 

"Do  you  remember  Ali  Machmet  Bey?" 
she  asked  me  presently. 

"Indeed  I  do.  Don't  you  know  how  you 
and  I  used  to  trot  after  him  and  call  him  our 
prophet  and  our  patissah  ?  " 

"You  cared  for  him,  did  you  not,  little 
mountain-spring?  But  you  left  Turkey  and 
forgot  him.  I  left  Constantinople,  too,  but 
never,  never  forgot  him.  How  could  I?  He 
was  the  best  and  most  generous  boy  of  all 
our  playfellows." 

"Yes,  "I  assented,  "and  warm-hearted  and 
strong-headed,  quick  to  take  offense,  and 
quick  to  forgive  and  apologize." 

As  I  spoke  a  scene  of  my  childhood  came 
back  to  me.  It  was  in  a  high  marble  hall, 
vith  a  cistern  at  one  side.  Ali  Machmet 
came  to  the  chain  of  the  bucket  and  held  it. 
I  came  afterward  and  insisted  that  I  must 

39 


draw  water  first.  We  fought,  and  Ali  Mach- 
met  struck  me  on  the  head  with  the  chain. 
No  sooner,  however,  had  the  chain  landed  on 
my  stubborn  head  than  he  came  to  me,  took 
from  his  pockets  all  he  had,  —  a  penknife,  a 
wooden  soldier,  and  five  piastres,  —  and  even 
now  I  can  hear  the  little  boy  say:  "Take 
any  of  these,  only  say  that  you  forgive  me." 

I,  the  greedy  little  girl,  said :  "I  want  all  of 
them  if  I  am  to  forgive  you." 

"Take  them!"  he  answered.  "Only  let 
me  sleep  one  more  night  with  my  soldier,  — 
I  will  explain  to  him  why  he  must  go,  — 
won't  you,  thunder-storm  ?  "  I  gave  him  back 
the  soldier  and  the  knife,  and  told  him  he 
might  draw  the  water  first  from  the  cistern; 
for  his  wistful  tone  when  he  spoke  of  his  sol- 
dier melted  my  heart;  but  the  five  piastres 
became  common  property,  and  we  feasted  on 
them  that  afternoon. 

As  I  was  lost  in  my  reminiscences,  Mihir- 
mah  put  her  hand  on  mine.   "  What  are  you 
thinking  about,  dear  one?  " 
40 


"About  All  Machmet,"  I  answered. 

"It  is  about  him  I  am  going  to  tell  you. 
His  image  never  left  my  heart,  and  when  his 
mother  chose  me  to  be  his  wife  I  went  to  him 
as  happy  as  one  is  in  dreamland.  My  little 
boy  was  born  in  less  than  a  year,  and  my 
little  daughter  a  year  later.  She  was  only  a 
few  months  old  when  I  heard  my  mother-in- 
law  —  she  is  dead  now,  and  may  Allah  for- 
give her !  —  tell  to  another  woman  how  she 
made  our  match.  She  did  not  know  that  I 
was  listening,  and  I  listened  because  I  ex- 
pected her  to  say  that  my  lord  had  loved  me 
from  childhood.  Instead  she  said  that  he  had 
not  wished  to  marry  and  had  repeatedly 
refused,  and  that  only  when  she  had  begged 
on  her  knees  that  she  should  be  permitted  to 
hold  his  baby  before  she  died,  had  he  given 
in  • —  he  was  her  only  child,  you  know.  When 
I  was  proposed  to  him,  he  had  answered: 
'Oh,  she  will  do  as  well  as  any  other.' 

"After  I  heard  these  words  I  ran  into  the 
garden.  I  shrieked,  I  tore  my  hair.  I  became 


ill,  and  begged  Allah  to  take  me  to  him ;  but 
he  meant  that  I  should  live.  When  I  became 
well  again,  I  could  not  look  at  Ali  Machmet, 
—  I  could  not  bear  to  hear  him  speak,  — 
so  I  left  him  and  came  here  to  my  grand- 
parents, with  my  babies  and  a  few  of  my 
slaves.  I  told  my  grandmother  that  I  had  left 
my  husband  for  the  present.  He  came  to  see 
me,  but  I  refused  to  see  him.  Then  his 
mother  was  taken  ill  and  died,  but  this  did 
not  bring  about  any  change  between  us.  Ali 
Machmet  saw  my  grandmother  and  arranged 
things  with  her  very  liberally  indeed;  not 
once  did  he  complain. 

"You  see,  little  blossom,  he  did  not  care 
for  me.  He  came  constantly  to  see  the  chil- 
dren; for  he  loved  them  dearly.  My  heart 
\vas  full  of  madness,  and  I  even  hated  my 
children  because  he  loved  them.  Sometimes 
I  used  to  think  that  I  should  like  to  kill  them 
and  throw  their  corpses  at  him  and  say: 
'You  took  me  so  that  I  might  give  children  to 
your  mother.  There  are  the  children !  I  took 
42 


their  breath  away  because  it  was  mine.'  I 
came  very  near  doing  it,  too,  for  I  know  now 
that  I  had  a  kind  of  madness. 

"Then  a  desire  to  make  him  jealous,  to 
torture  him  in  some  way,  came  upon  me;  and 
without  any  more  thought  I  made  one  of  my 
faithful  slaves  write  him  an  anonymous  letter 
telling  him  that  I  had  a  lover.  But  I  ought  to 
have  known  better;  for  Ali  Machmet  is  not 
the  kind  of  man  to  believe  anonymous  letters. 

"Finally,  in  despair,  I  wrote  a  love-letter, 
such  a  one  as  I  could  write  only  to  Ali  Mach- 
met himself,  with  a  foreign  name  on  top, 
signed  it  with  my  name,  and  sent  it  to  my 
husband.  In  two  days  he  was  here  with  the 
letter.  I  was  in  my  room  with  the  children. 
He  did  not  have  them  taken  out.  He  came 
and  sat  near  me,  took  the  little  girl  in  his  lap, 
and  put  the  boy  in  mine.  Then  he  took  from 
his  portfolio  the  letter,  gave  it  to  me,  and 
waited.  I  read  the  letter,  and  did  not  say  any- 
thing. He  asked  me  quietly  if  I  had  written  it. 

"I  nodded  my  head. 

43 


"'To  whom  did  you  write  it?'  he  asked. 

"'To  you,  since  you  have  it,'  I  said." 
Mihirmah's  eyes  filled  with  tears,  and  a  sob 
came  to  her  throat. 

"Dear  little  mountain-spring,  I  told  him 
just  the  truth  and  nothing  else;  but  his  eyes 
were  full  of  anger,  and  I  knew  he  could  kill 
me  if  he  did  not  master  himself. 

"'Mihirmah,'  he  said,  'I  want  you  to  tell 
me  where  I  can  find  this  man.' 

"How  could  I  tell  him,  since  there  was  no 
such  man?  I  had  only  wanted  to  make  him 
jealous  and  bring  him  to  me.  I  told  him  that 
there  was  no  such  man. 

"  He  took  my  hands  and  put  the  one  on  the 
head  of  my  boy  and  the  other  on  that  of  my 
girl.  'For  their  sake!'  he  said. 

"The  old  jealousy  of  mine  came  back  to 
me  fiercer  than  ever.  I  jumped  up,  and  in 
doing  so  threw  the  boy  to  the  floor,  and  he 
began  to  cry.  Ali  Machmet  picked  up  the 
child  and  soothed  it  for  a  while.  Then  he  put 
him  down  and  came  over  to  me. 
44 


"'Mihirmah,'  he  said  very  quietly,  'if  you 
don't  want  to  live  with  me  you  need  not,  but 
you  must  not  be  a  wicked  woman.  I  am  go- 
ing away  now.  In  a  wreek  you  must  write  me 
this  man's  name.'  How  could  I  ?  There  was 
no  such  name." 

"But,  my  beautiful  Mihirmah,"  I  ex- 
claimed, "why  didn't  you  write  him  the 
truth?" 

"Yes,"  she  said  quietly,  "it  was  the  one 
chance  Allah  gave  me  to  perform  a  great, 
good  act  and  earn  the  right  to  live;  but  I  did 
not;  and  in  ten  days  I  \vas  a  divorced  woman. 
He  cast  me  off  as  he  would  a  garment  that 
had  served  its  purpose.  I  had  given  him  a 
boy,  and  I  was  good  for  nothing  more.  This 
thought  tortured  my  heart  enough  to  kill  it 
and  turn  it  to  ashes;  but  my  humiliation,  and 
this  new  proof  that  he  did  not  care  for  me, 
did  not  cure  me  of  loving  him." 

Mihirmah  took  my  hands  and  almost 
crushed  them  between  hers.  "  Little  blossom, 
I  love  him  now  more  than  I  ever  did  before, 

45 


and  there  are  days,  like  to-day,  when  every 
bit  of  life  in  me  cries  out  for  him.  I  shall  go 
mad  for  love  of  a  man  who  puts  me  out  of  his 
life  as  easily  as  one  brushes  away  a  speck  of 
dust.  But  he  has  been  generous  in  all  of  his 
settlements.  He  even  left  me  my  children,  on 
the  condition  that  I  was  to  remain  a  good 
wyoman,  and  that  he  should  take  the  little  girl 
away  when  I  was  unworthy  of  her. 

"Two  days  after  he  divorced  me  he  took 
the  eunuchs  away.  You  understand,  blos- 
som, what  that  means?  I  was  no  longer  a 
wife  —  no  one  cared  for  me  any  more.  I 
could  take  my  choice,  and  be  good  or  bad.  I 
fought  myself  for  months  after  this  to  keep 
my  hands  from  doing  violence  to  my  body. 
Then  the  old  people  were  taken  ill,  first  the 
one  and  then  the  other,  and  both  died.  Car- 
ing for  them  occupied  my  mind  for  a  year." 

"Is  Ali  Machmet  married  again?"  I 
asked. 

"Oh,  no,  dear  one!  He  does  not  care  for 
women.  His  heart  is  in  the  army.  He  has 
46 


only  one  wish,  and  that  is  to  get  the  ear  of  the 
Sultan  and  tell  him  all  that  our  army  needs 
to  be  powerful  again.  For  years  now  he  has 
been  waiting  and  hoping;  but  his  superiors 
are  men  of  the  old  regime,  they  do  not  be- 
lieve in  new  guns  and  new  methods.  They 
prevent  him  every  time  from  having  an  inter- 
view with  our  Calif." 

"How  long  is  it  since  he  divorced  you?"  I 
asked. 

"Two  long  years,  dear  one,  and  I  have 
never  seen  him  since.  He  sends  for  the  chil- 
dren once  a  week,  and  keeps  them  a  day  and 
a  night  with  him.  That  is  why  you  did  not 
see  them  the  first  night  you  came.  They  were 
with  him.  When  they  come  back  they  talk 
incessantly  of  him  to  me,  and  though  every 
word  they  say  is  a  new  burn  to  the  old  wound, 
I  make  them  say  it  over  and  over  again,  to  be 
tortured  the  more." 

Mihirmah  put  her  head  in  my  lap  and 
cried  for  hours.  It  was  almost  daybreak  be- 
fore I  managed  to  soothe  her  and  put  her  to 

47 


sleep.  The  next  morning  she  was  ill  and  had 
to  stay  in  bed,  but  the  morning  following  she 
was  herself  again,  and  begged  me  to  forgive 
her  for  letting  her  sorrow  interfere  with  my 
pleasure. 

I  don't  know  when  I  have  ever  met  with 
more  real  unhappiness  than  hers.  It  was  not 
so  much  the  open  outburst  as  the  following 
days  of  suppressed  suffering  that  impressed 
me.  I  began  to  wonder  if  I  could  not  possibly 
help  her  —  to  wonder  what  the  result  would 
be  if  I  went  to  Stamboul  to  Ali  Machmet's 
house  and  told  him  every  word  his  wife  had 
told  me.  One  minute  I  thought  it  a  very 
simple  and  perfect  plan;  the  next  I  was  not 
so  sure. 

Thus  several  days  passed,  when  sud- 
denly little  Ali  fell  ill. 

I  went  to  his  room  to  see  him.  He  had 
quite  a  high  temperature.  "Do  you  think  it 
can  be  the  measles?"  I  asked  his  mother. 

She  was  kneeling  beside  the  child's  couch, 
her  cool  cheek  resting  against  his  hot  one. 
48 


"No,  the  little  villain  has  been  eating  green 
fruit,  he  tells  me." 

I  was  dejected  at  the  answer.  A  plan  had 
come  to  me  which  the  measles  would  help. 
Yet  I  would  not  give  up  so  easily.  I  seized 
Mihirmah's  hand  and  dragged  her  away 
from  the  bed. 

"Come  with  me,"  I  said  breathlessly.  In 
the  next  room  I  faced  her.  "Mihirmah,  little 
Ali  may  be  dangerously  ill.  Send  for  your 
husband.  Telegraph  him,  and  he  will  be  here 
to-day  or  to-morrow." 

"But,  my  lovely  jasmine,"  Mihirmah  pro- 
tested, rather  bewildered,  "little  Ali  is  not 
ill  enough  to  send  for  his  father.  He  will  be 
all  right  in  a  day  or  two.  It  is  his  little  stom- 
ach, that's  all." 

"But,  my  darling  Mihirmah,"  I  cried, 
more  excited,  "don't  you  see  that  it  does  not 
matter  how  sick  the  child  really  is." 

She  shook  her  head.  "I  have  shammed  to 
my  husband  once,  and  I  am  a  divorced  wo- 
man. I  will  not  sham  again." 

49 


"Mihirmah,  has  little  Ali  ever  been  sick 
before?"  I  asked. 

"No,  he  never  has.  He  is  his  father  in 
looks  and  in  health." 

"Well,  then,  don't  you  see  that  Allah  is 
giving  you  another  chance?  Send  for  Ali 
Machmet;  if  nothing  comes  of  it  you  will  at 
least  have  seen  him." 

There  we  stood :  I,  the  Greek,  with  the  in- 
stinct of  the  merchant,  wishing  to  manufac- 
ture an  opportunity;  she,  the  Oriental  fatalist, 
willing  to  suffer  the  will  of  Allah,  but  not  to 
avail  herself  of  conditions  that  needed  manip- 
ulating. But  I  had  made  up  my  mind  that 
on  this  day  the  Greek  should  win  —  and  I 
did. 

It  took  time,  however,  and  the  telegram 
was  sent  so  late  that  there  was  not  time  for 
Ali  Machmet  to  come  that  day.  Mihirmah, 
when  the  telegram  was  sent,  retired  to  her 
room  and  prayed  for  hours  to  Allah.  I  sat  by 
the  child.  I,  too,  was  praying  to  my  God; 
but  I  rather  think  that  our  prayers  were  as 
5° 


different  as  the  languages  they  were  ad- 
dressed in;  for  I  was  praying  that  little  Ali 
might  at  least  have  the  measles. 

That  night  Mihirmah  slept  little.  Like  a 
white  spirit  she  roamed  all  over  the  house, 
and  about  the  garden. 

The  morning  came,  a  very  lovely  one, 
unruffled  by  the  storm  that  was  going  on  in 
our  hearts.  I  don't  know  how  far  Mihirmah's 
prayers  had  travelled  toward  Allah,  but  mine, 
thanks  to  the  proverb,  " Aide-toi  et  Dieu 
faidera"  were  being  answered;  for  I  had 
seen  personally  to  little  Ali's  stomach,  and 
my  simple  measures  were  acting  efficaciously. 

The  first  afternoon  train  brought  Ali 
Machmet.  By  that  time  I  had  succeeded  in 
convincing  Mihirmah  that  the  boy  really 
had  all  the  symptoms  of  measles.  I  had  be- 
come desperate;  for  she  had  told  me  that  as 
soon  as  her  husband  arrived  she  would  throw 
herself  at  his  feet  and  confess  her  ruse  to  him. 

As  soon  as  I  saw  Ali  Machmet  coming  on 
horseback,  I  rushed  to  the  child  and  took  off 

51 


him  the  ten  or  twelve  coverlets  which  I  had 
on  him,  to  accentuate  his  fever.  Then,  al- 
most by  force,  I  dragged  the  mother  to  the 
bedside,  there  to  await  the  coming  of  her 
husband ;  and  I  myself,  too  excited  to  do  any- 
thing but  stand  about  in  the  garden  and  tear 
my  handkerchief  to  pieces,  waited  the  result 
of  the  meeting. 

Ali  Machmet  had  brought  a  doctor  with 
him,  who  stayed  wifch  the  child  some  time. 
Then  the  doctor  went  away,  and  Ali  Mach- 
met and  Mihirmah  were  alone  by  the  child's 
bed.  When  a  slave  came  and  told  me  that 
the  master  had  retired  to  the  pavilion  we  had 
prepared  for  him  in  the  garden,  I  went  into 
the  sick-room.  Mihirmah,  white  as  a  sheet, 
sat  staring  at  the  sleeping  child. 

"What  did  the  doctor  say?"  I  asked. 

Mihirmah  looked  at  me  as  if  she  did  not 
know  who  I  was,  at  first;  then  she  answered 
that  the  doctor  had  said  the  child  did  not 
have  the  measles,  although  the  vomiting  was 
a  bad  sign. 
52 


I  chuckled  inwardly,  knowing  that  were 
I  to  tell  Mihirmah  what  had  caused  the 
vomiting  there  would  be  trouble  for  the 
Greek  infidel. 

"What  did  Ali  Machmet  say  to  you?"  I 
asked. 

Mihirmah  broke  down  completely  at  my 
words.  It  was  like  a  fierce  rain  on  a  hot  sum- 
mer's day.  She  cried  in  torrents,  and  that 
was  all  I  was  destined  to  know,  for  the  door 
opened  and  Ali  Machmet  came  in.  She  did 
not  see  him,  but  I  did,  and  rearranged  my 
batteries  a  little,  but  not  too  much,  for  I  was 
as  afraid  as  ever  of  Mihirmah's  tongue. 

He  came  near,  and  put  his  hand  on  her 
head.  She  was  startled  and  turned  her  tear- 
stained  face  toward  him.  There  are  tears  and 
tears  —  ugly  tears  and  pretty  tears,  tears  that 
annoy  and  those  that  attract;  it  all  depends 
on  the  attitude  of  the  onlooker.  I  suppose 
Mihirmah's  tears  were  very  pretty  to  her 
former  husband,  for  he  was  very  gentle  and 
kind  to  her. 

53 


"And  now,  Mihirmah,  you  had  better  go 
to  your  room  and  rest  a  little,"  he  said  to  her, 
after  he  had  soothed  her. 

She  obeyed  him  instantly,  and  I  was  left 
alone  with  him.  I  knew  he  was  very  far  from 
guessing  who  I  was.  In  a  voice  as  much  like 
a  child's  as  I  could  make  it,  I  said:  — 

"Take  them,  only  let  me  sleep  one  more 
night  with  my  soldier,  —  I  will  explain  to 
him  why  he  must  go,  —  won't  you,  thunder- 
storm?" 

Then  I  laughed  and  gave  him  my  hand, 
and  it  did  me  good  to  see  how  glad  he  was  to 
see  me.  We  chatted  for  a  half-hour  or  so,  and 
then  the  slave  came  to  say  that  dinner  was 
ready. 

"  Of  course  you  will  eat  with  us,  Ali  Mach- 
met?"  I  said.  I  saw  protest  written  all  over 
him.  "If  you  do  not,  you  are  very  cruel,  be- 
cause it  is  my  only  chance  to  see  you." 

When  I  had  him  caught,  I  hurried  to 
Mihirmah's  room. 

"Mihirmah,  my  dear  one,  there  are  two 
54 


roads  to  men's  hearts,  according  to  an  old 
foolish  Greek  proverb;  through  their  stom- 
achs, with  good  food,  and  through  their  eyes, 
with  good  looks.  You  are,  and  you  must 
look,  pretty." 

I  found  I  did  not  have  to  urge  her  to  this, 
and  it  was  a  terribly  attractive  Mihirmah, 
with  her  pale  face  and  tremulous  lips,  who 
came  into  the  dining-room.  Our  meal  was  a 
happy  one.  I  was  happy  because  I  felt  that 
things  were  going  well.  I  knew  that  Mihir- 
mah must  be  happy,  in  a  bitter  and  sweet 
way,  in  her  husband's  presence;  and  who  can 
tell,  but  that  he  was  happy,  too  ?  —  at  any 
rate,  he  did  not  look  as  if  he  disliked  it. 

We  finished  eating  the  twenty-odd  dishes 
that  were  served  us,  and  had  come  to  the  fruit, 
which  is  the  best  part  of  a  Turkish  meal, 
as  the  serving  force  retires  and  the  conversa- 
tion takes  a  more  intimate  tone  and  lingers  on 
sometimes  for  an  hour.  All  was  going  well 
when  my  bad  angel  whispered  to  me  to  ask 
Ali  Machmet  about  his  work  and  the  army. 

55 


"The  little  fellow  will  never  know  what  his 
illness  has  cost  his  father,"  he  said  in  a  sad 
voice.  "For  years  now  I  have  been  trying  to 
reach  our  Calif,  but  forces  stronger  than  my 
own  always  kept  me  out  of  his  sight.  To-day, 
at  last,  I  was  going  to  have  my  interview.  The 
palace-physician  had  consented  to  smuggle 
me  in  to  him,  and  all  the  chances  were  favor- 
able. Now  the  opportunity  is  lost,  and  I  may 
never  have  another." 

There  was  a  noise  of  broken  dishes,  of  a 
chair  overturning,  and  Mihirmah  was  at  the 
feet  of  her  husband.  I  felt  that  all  my  schem- 
ing had  been  in  vain. 

"My  lord,  master  of  my  life  and  my 
death,"  Mihirmah  was  wailing,  "7  have  ru- 
ined your  chance.  I  brought  you  here  when 
perhaps  I  ought  to  have  waited." 

I  jumped  to  my  feet,  and  ran  to  her. 
"Listen,  Mihirmah!  Let  me  take  Ali  Mach- 
met  to  the  pavilion  and  have  a  talk  with  him. 
I  promise  I  will  tell  him  everything." 

"No,  little  thunder-storm,"  she  said,  "you 
56 


go  to  the  garden.  I  must  speak — I  must 
suffer  alone." 

AH  Machmet  had  risen  and  was  trying  to 
lift  his  wife  from  her  kneeling  position.  He 
looked,  bewildered,  from  one  to  the  other 
of  us. 

I  tried  to  speak  to  him;  but  Mihirmah 
first  implored,  then  commanded  me  to  go  to 
the  garden  and  leave  her  alone  with  him.  I 
went,  but  not  to  the  garden.  I  sat  at  the  head 
of  the  stairs,  to  keep  the  slaves  away  if  they 
should  appear,  and  to  be  at  hand  if  Mihirmah 
should  need  me. 

Opposite  the  stairs  was  a  long  window, 
and  through  the  upper  part  of  it,  which  was 
not  latticed,  I  could  see  the  sky.  My  tongue 
mechanically  was  praying :  "  Oh !  Allah,  help 
her!"  I  repeated  it  over  and  over.  A  shoot- 
ing star  fell,  and  my  prayer  caught  it.  My 
superstitious  soul  leaped.  "My  prayer 
caught  the  shooting  star,"  I  found  myself 
saying,  and  then  I  kept  on  praying. 

It  seemed  years  that  I  sat  on  those  stairs  — 

57 


till  I  could  not  stand  it  any  longer.  Making 
the  sign  of  the  cross  three  times  over  my 
heart,  I  crept  toward  the  fatal  room.  I 
opened  the  door  ever  so  little  and  peeped  in ; 
then  quietly  I  drew  back  and  went  out  into 
the  garden. 

"Remember,  lady,"  I  apostrophized  my- 
self, while  I  tried  hard  to  keep  the  dry  sobs 
from  my  throat,  "you  have  done  a  great  act, 
and  according  to  Mihirmah  you  have  earned 
the  right  to  live." 

Then  I  looked  up  at  the  friendly  sky  and 
laughed,  while  tears  at  last  came  streaming 
down;  for  what  I  had  seen  in  the  closed  room 
was  what,  according  to  the  Orientals,  causes 
Allah  to  smile,  and  the  flowers  to  grow  more 
beautiful,  and  the  birds  to  sing  their  sweetest 
song:  for  in  the  closed  room  above,  Mihir- 
mah's  head  was  nestling  on  her  husband's 
heart,  and  Ali  Machmet's  face  was  radiant 
as  that  of  a  lover. 


Ill 

DJIMLAH,   THE   THINKER,    SELIM 
PASHA'S  FOURTH  WIFE 

I  LOOKED  forward  to  my  third  visit  with 
even  greater  anticipation  than  to  the  other 
two :  and,  indeed,  it  promised  to  be  all  a  stu- 
dent of  Turkish  customs  could  ask  for.  The 
friend  I  was  to  visit  was  a  girl  I  had  known 
better  than  any  other  Osmanli  girl.  I  was  to 
find  her  the  mother  of  three  children,  and 
the  fourth  wife  of  one  of  the  most  powerful 
pashas  in  the  Sultan's  entourage,  —  a  man 
much  older  than  herself,  to  whom  her  family 
had  given  her  in  marriage  without  a  by- 
your-leave.  I  was  tremendously  interested 
to  see  how  she  had  accepted  the  situation. 

Djimlah,  moreover,  had  a  vigorous  and 
original  mind,  which  had  attracted  me  in  our 
youth  — although  as  she  grew  up  and  began 
to  think  of  love,  her  thoughts  were  frightful. 

59 


JJUU 


Once  she  said  to  me : ' '  Love  has  nothing  to  do 
with  one's  thoughts  or  one's  aspirations.  It  is 
merely  a  manifestation  of  the  senses.  The' 
intensity  of  one's  love  depends  on  one's 
physical  condition.  When  a  man  loves  a 
woman  he  does  not  care  whether  she  is  good 
or  bad,  whether  she  will  be  a  friend  and  com- 
panion to  him  or  not.  He  simply  wants  that 
woman,  and  will  do  all  he  can  to  get  her.  As 
for  the  woman,  she  obeys  her  instincts  as 
blindly  as  an  animal." 

"How  about  her  soul?"  I  asked. 

She  laughed  scornfully.  "You  little  petal 
of  a  flower,  woman  has  no  soul." 

"Yes,  that  is  what  you  Turks  say,"  I 
cried.  "But  we  do  not  believe  in  that  doc- 
trine. Woman  has  a  soul." 

"No,  she  hasn't,"  Djimlah  contradicted; 
"she  is  all  emotions  and  senses." 

If  an  ugly  girl  had  spoken  as  Djimlah 

spoke,  it  would  have  been  very  repulsive; 

but  the  radiant  loveliness  of  the  girl  could  not 

fail  to  modify  the   impression  made  by  her 

60 


words.  While  speaking,  she  would  clasp  her 
hands  above  her  head,  the  sleeves  falling 
away  from  her  white  arms;  she  would  half 
close  her  eyes,  in  a  way  that  made  the  light 
shining  through  them  softer;  and  her  lips 
forming  her  words  were  fresh  and  crimson, 
like  a  rose  with  the  dew  on  it.  The  Greek  in 
me,  looking  at  her,  forgave  her  words  —  one 
of  the  judges  who  liberated  the  accused 
Phryne,  because  she  was  so  beautiful,  may 
have  been  an  ancestor  of  mine.  And  she 
prefaced  all  her  blighting  remarks  with  such 
endearments  as  "little  crest  of  the  wave," 
"little  mountain  brook,"  or  "flower  of  the 
almond  tree."  It  was  as  if  I  were  being  taken 
to  a  slaughter-house  through  a  rose-con- 
servatory. 

Foreigners  she  hated  intensely,  and  to  be 
the  wife  of  a  foreigner  was  to  her  the  most 
miserable  existence  imaginable. 

One  day,  when  she  was  telling  me  that 
"love  was  a  necessity  of  the  body,  like  food 
and  air,  and  that  when  the  senses  awoke 

61 


and  asked  their  due,  they  ought  to  get  it," 
I  asked :  — 

"Djimlah,  since  love  is  nothing  but  the 
rightful  demand  of  sense,  and  since  you  be- 
lieve in  its  gratification,  while  at  the  same 
time  you  hate  foreigners  so  tremendously, 
what  should  you  do  if  you  fell  in  love  with  a 
foreigner  ?  " 

"  Oh !  I  should  let  him  love  me  for  a  while, 
and  then  have  him  killed." 

She  said  this  without  the  slightest  tremor 
in  her  voice,  without  the  faintest  added  pink 
mounting  her  cheeks.  What  a  sinner  she 
would  have  made,  had  she  been  a  European 
woman !  How  many  souls  of  men  she  would 
have  sent  to  eternal  damnation  with  a  slight 
shrug  of  her  superb  shoulders! 

When  she  had  written  to  me  in  her  fault- 
less French,  asking  me  to  visit  her,  I  was  both 
pleased  and  surprised;  for  I  knew  her  hus- 
band's household  to  be  one  of  the  very  ortho- 
dox, into  which  foreigners  were  almost  never 
allowed  to  penetrate.  During  my  girlhood, 
62 


although  I  had  been  in  many  haremliks,  I 
had  never  happened  to  be  in  one  where  more 
than  one  wife  was  living,  and  they  had  all 
been  somewhat  Europeanized.  Selim  Pasha's 
was  the  first  old-fashioned  harem  which  was 
opening  its  doors  to  me. 

It  was  Djimlah  herself  who  called  for  me 
in  her  brougham.  A  tall,  powerful  eunuch 
opened  the  door  of  her  carriage,  and  when 
I  was  in  it,  jumped  up  to  his  seat  beside  the 
coachman,  and  we  were  off.  Inside  was 
Djimlah,  with  two  slaves.  When  she  took 
me  in  her  arms  and  kissed  me,  I  was  envel- 
oped in  an  atmosphere  of  subtle  perfume  and 
rich  luxury.  I  thought  how  a  French  writer 
would  have  loved  to  describe  her.  Her  im- 
maculate yashmak,  transparently  gauzy, 
let  me  see  her  beauty,  resplendent,  yet  some- 
how softer  than  I  remembered  it.  She  had 
always  been  of  the  tall,  self-reliant  type:  now 
she  looked  still  more  sure  of  herself,  invested 
as  she  was  with  the  name  of  a  powerful  pasha. 

[n  our  girlhood  we  had  been  on  the  same 

63 


social  footing;  but  with  the  turning  of  the 
wheel  of  fortune  I  had  gone  under  and  had 
become  a  breadwinner  —  she  had  been  car- 
ried up  to  the  top.  The  present  meeting  was 
the  first  for  six  years. 

It  is  difficult  to  talk  in  a  carriage  anywhere, 
but  in  Constantinople  it  is  impossible.  Roll- 
ing over  the  miserable  pavement  makes  a 
noise  worthy  of  the  dogs.  Djimlah  and  I, 
after  our  first  embrace,  lay  back  against  the 
cushions  and  closed  our  eyes,  she  holding 
my  hand  in  hers.  Once,  when  the  carriage 
stopped  for  a  minute,  she  opened  her  eyes 
and  looking  long  and  earnestly  at  me,  said, 
with  delightful  Oriental  frankness:  — 

"  You  have  changed,  little  flower.  America 
has  robbed  you  of  your  youth.  I  must  keep 
you  here  and  help  you  to  get  it  back." 

"When  we  arrived  at  her  palace,  she  took 
me  directly  to  my  room,  where  a  pretty  slave 
was  waiting  for  me. 

"This  is  your  room,"  she  said,  and,  point- 
ing to  the  slave,  "she  is  yours  also."  She 
64 


opened  a  large  cupboard  whose  shelves  were 
filled  with  clothes:  "And  here  is  all  you  will 
need  while  you  stay  with  us."  To  the  slave 
she  added :  — 

"  Kondje,  this  is  your  mistress.  If  she  does 
not  look  any  better  when  she  leaves  than  she 
does  now,  let  me  never  see  your  face  again. 
If  she  improves,  you  can  ask  me  anything 
you  like."  Drawing  the  slave  to  her  and 
petting  her,  she  went  on,  pointing  to  me  as 
if  I  were  an  inanimate  object:  "Kondje, 
she  used  to  be  very  pretty  —  look  at  her 
now !  Could  you  believe  that  she  is  younger 
than  I?" 

The  slave  shook  her  head,  and  looked  me 
up  and  down  compassionately. 

I  burst  out  laughing.  "Really,  Djimlah, 
you  must  learn  to  spare  my  feelings  I  have 
just  come  from  America,  where  we  don't  tell 
the  truth  like  that." 

"Nasty  country,  anyhow7!"  she  observed. 

The  slave  came  to  me  and  threw  her  arms 
around  me.  "Young  Hanoum,  is  it  a  dis- 

65 


appointment  in  love?"  she  asked  sympa- 
thetically. 

"Nonsense!"  Djimlah  interjected,  "Fool- 
ishness! that's  the  reason.  Instead  of  let- 
ting a  good  strong  man  take  care  of  her, 
she  is  doing  it  for  herself  —  disgracing  Allah 
and  his  sons.  Now  good-by,  and  rest  all  you 
can." 

Kondje  took  her  task  to  heart.  She  bathed 
and  massaged  me,  as  if  I  were  to  be  made 
over.  Then  she  brought  out  several  garments, 
and  after  discarding  them  all  as  not  befitting 
my  beauty,  —  or  to  be  more  accurate,  my 
lack  of  it,  —  she  at  last  satisfied  herself  from 
a  fresh  armful  from  the  closet. 

After  I  had  rested,  I  went  down  to  the 
garden,  where  Djimlah  presented  me  to  the 
other  three  wives  of  Selim  Pasha,  their 
ladies-in-waiting,  and  a  few  guests.  We  were 
twenty-seven  in  all,  and  we  reclined  under  a 
canopy  of  flowers,  and  waited  for  the  coming 
sunset.  A  high  wall  hid  us  from  the  outside 
world,  and  a  pergola,  covered  with  pink  and 
66 


purple  wistaria,  protected  us  from  any  mas- 
culine eyes  which  might  chance  to  look  over 
from  the  side  of  the  palace  reserved  for  men. 
I  took  my  seat  by  Djimlah,  on  a  lot  of  cush- 
ions. 

Presently  one  of  the  women  reached  up  a 
bare  arm,  plucked  a  bunch  of  wistaria,  and 
threw  it  at  another  woman.  Simultaneously 
several  bare  arms  went  up,  and  pink  and 
purple  wistaria  went  flying  right  and  left,  so 
that  in  a  few  minutes  the  ground  and  the 
Turkish  rugs  on  which  we  were  reclining 
were  covered  with  flowers. 

"  Give  us  some  music,  beautiful  ones,"  said 
the  first  wife,  who  was  the  head  of  the  house- 
hold, and  who  was  addressed  as  Valide 
Hanoum. 

Some  of  the  young  slaves  picked  up  their 
zithers,  and  the  music  of  the  East  charmed 
our  ears  for  a  few  minutes. 

"See  now,  see  how  fast  he  is  travelling!" 
exclaimed  Djimlah,  pointing  to  the  sun. 
"He  is  getting  impatient  to  reach  his  home 

67 


*nd  throw  his  arms  around  his  women-folk 
and  rest  from  the  day's  labor." 

She  turned  to  me.  "Do  you  remember, 
little  bride  of  the  river,  how  you  and  I  used 
to  run  to  catch  the  sun  when  we  were  small  ? 
And  do  you  remember  how  once  we  were  so 
engrossed  with  him  that  we  fell  into  the 
Propontis  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  do  remember,"  I  answered;  "how 
very  happy  we  were  then,  Djimlah!" 

"Why  'then'?"  inquired  the  young  wo- 
man. "  Are  we  not  happy  now  ?  Are  you  not, 
Allah's  little  ray?" 

"Are  you?"  I  questioned. 

"Of  course  I  am,"  the  young  wife  an- 
swered, clasping  her  youngest  child  to  her 
bosom.  "I  am  even  more  happy  now  with 
my  babies  and  my  lord."  Then  she  added, 
as  if  the  thought  had  just  come  to  her,  "You 
have  not  taken  a  master  to  your  heart,  dear 
one  —  why?  You  remember  how  we  used  to 
plan  about  our  husbands,  and  you  always 
said  you  would  marry  a  prince  ever  so  great 
68 


and  powerful.  I  have  my  husband;  where 
is  yours,  little  blossom?" 

"I  have  searched  all  Europe,"  I  replied, 
"  and  in  despair  I  have  crossed  the  ocean  and 
gone  to  America.  He  is  quite  elusive;  he 
evades  me  everywhere." 

"Does  it  make  you  sad,  Allah's  little 
cloud?"  said  the  Valide  Hanoum,  leaning 
over  and  running  her  fingers  over  my  hair. 

"Look!  look  at  him  now!"  cried  another, 
pointing  to  the  sun.  "He  is  kissing  the  hills 
good-by.  Look,  how  he  makes  them  blush ; 
how  pink  they  grow  in  their  love  for  him! 
In  their  joy  now  they  will  sing  in  colors." 

"Mashallah!  mashallah!"  exclaimed  sev- 
eral women,  kissing  their  fingers  to  the  de- 
parting sun.  From  outside  the  wralls  a  shep- 
herd was  singing  the  sunset  song  as  he  walked 
behind  his  sheep.  The  slaves,  this  time  of 
their  own  accord,  were  softly  singing, 
"  Happy,  happy  we,  dwellers  of  this  beautiful 
land!" 

These  women  were  all  intoxicated  with  the 

69 


beauty  of  nature  before  them.  Nowhere 
have  I  seen  such  pure  enjoyment  of  life. 
Nothing  was  bothering  them.  They  had  no 
other  career  except  that  of  being  beautiful 
and  happy. 

The  color  of  the  sky  was  spreading,  taking 
in  the  Byzantine  wall,  the  Golden  Horn,  and 
the  slender  minarets  silhouetted  from  afar; 
and  the  East  little  by  little  crept  again  into 
my  blood,  and  I  let  myself  go  and  be  happy  in 
mere  existence. 

After  sunset  the  Valide  Hanoum  gave  the 
signal  of  departure,  and  at  once  wives,  chil- 
dren, guests,  and  slaves  rose  to  their  feet. 
Two  eunuchs  carried  the  rugs  and  pillows, 
while  the  others  carried  the  young  children. 
There  were  eight  of  these  black  cerberi  - 
two  for  each  wife.  As  we  descended  from  the 
hill  the  dwelling  presented  itself  in  full  view. 
It  was  a  huge,  ugly  wooden  structure  of 
ninety  rooms,  looking  more  like  a  factory 
than  a  rich  residence.  Of  the  ninety  rooms 
only  twenty  were  given  over  to  the  master 
70 


and  his  retinue;  the  rest  belonged  to  the 
women. 

The  Valide*  Hanoum,  in  her  position  as 
first  wife,  occupied  the  first  floor,  and  had 
more  rooms  assigned  to  her  than  any  other 
wife.  Djimlah,  my  friend,  as  fourth  wife, 
was  destined  to  see  the  world  from  the  top 
of  the  house;  and  she  had  only  fourteen 
rooms  for  herself.  There  was  but  one  bath- 
house, and  that  belonged  to  the  Valide 
Hanoum;  but  all  the  ladies  took  their  hour- 
long  ablutions  there.  On  each  floor  there 
was  a  connecting  passage  to  the  other  side  of 
the  house,  through  which  the  master  could 
visit  each  wife  without  being  seen  by  the 
others. 

As  I  said  before,  this  household  was  a  very 
strict  one,  and  the  women  of  the  house  obeyed 
all  the  laws  of  their  creed,  and  followed  the 
prescribed  customs  rigorously.  Their  nails 
were  profusely  dyed,  and  their  indoor  robes 
were  one-piece  garments  of  very  costly  ma- 
terials. Their  hair  was  done  up  in  braids, 


while  gauzy  pieces  of  silk,  cut  bias,  were  ar- 
ranged round  their  heads.  Saluting  with 
the  graceful  temena  —  touching  the  floor,  the 
knees,  the  heart,  the  lips,  and  the  forehead  - 
was  customary,  on  every  occasion ;  and  strict 
attention  was  given  to  precedence. 

The  Valide  Hanoum  sat  at  the  head  of  the 
table,  the  second  wife  sitting  at  the  foot. 
The  third  wife  sat  at  the  right  of  the  first,  and 
the  fourth  at  the  right  of  the  second.  On 
no  occasion  were  these  places  changed.  The 
first  wife  was  served  first,  and  it  was  she  who 
gave  the  signal  for  conversation.  Also  per- 
mission for  inviting  guests  or  going  out  to 
pay  visits  was  granted  or  refused  by  the 
Valide. 

As  far  as  I  could  judge,  there  was  no  jeal- 
ousy between  the  wives.  The  others  looked 
upon  the  Valide  as  a  mother,  though  she  was 
little  older  than  the  second  and  third  wife. 
I  was  given  to  understand  that  the  harmony 
of  the  household  depended  absolutely  on  the 
character  of  the  first  wife.  As  the  household 
72 


was  very  Oriental,  the  only  chairs  to  be  seen 
were  in  the  dining-room.  There  were  several 
reception  rooms,  one  of  which  was  supposed 
to  be  furnished  in  European  fashion.  It  was 
as  European  as  the  Oriental  rooms  in  Amer- 
ica are  Oriental. 

In  the  sixty-five  rooms  assigned  to  women 
there  was  not  a  room  that  could  be  called  a 
bedroom,  that  is,  that  had  the  appearance  of 
being  given  over  to  that  use.  Instead,  there 
were  many  rooms  bare  of  furniture  except 
for  rugs  and  pillows  and  one  or  two  low 
tables  inlaid  with  mother-of-pearl.  These 
rooms  had  beautiful  damask  hangings  at  the 
windows,  and  a  low  platform  with  two  steps 
leading  up  to  it,  on  one  side  of  the  room.  On 
this  platform  was  a  silken  rug,  and  baskets 
or  vases  of  flowers.  Had  one  had  the  curios- 
ity to  open  the  large  cupboards  in  these 
rooms,  one  would  have  found  all  the  bed- 
clothes neatly  folded  away.  The  Turks  never 
use  hard  mattresses,  like  ours,  but  several 
well-kept  soft  ones,  made  of  cotton.  From 

73 


the  closets  the  bedclothes  were  taken  at  night 
and  arranged  on  the  low  platforms.  This 
mode  of  living,  I  suppose,  is  a  remnant  of 
their  former  nomadic  habits. 

On  the  first  night  of  my  arrival,  while  I 
was  lying  on  my  platform,  thinking  over  my 
day's  experience,  the  door  of  my  room  opened 
softly  to  let  Djimlah  pass.  I  was  certain  that 
while  she  sat  in  my  room  a  eunuch  was 
crouching  at  my  door.  She  was  ready  for  the 
night  —  her  hair  done  up  in  that  queer  Orien- 
tal fashion  becoming  only  to  Eastern  wromen. 
It  was  divided  in  two  and  parted  in  the  mid- 
dle; each  division  again  subdivided  in  two, 
and  each  braided  loosely.  Then  the  ends  of 
the  two  front  braids  were  tied  up  by  a  wide, 
soft  piece  of  silk,  which  hung  loose  in  the 
back  and  formed  a  kind  of  background  for 
the  face.  Djimlah's  headdress  was  of  pale 
blue,  which  brought  out  the  color  of  her  deep 
blue  eyes.  As  she  sat  at  the  foot  of  my  plat- 
form a  lovely  perfume  of  roses  emanated 
from  her. 
74 


"Sun-ray,"  I  said  to  her,  "your  approach 
signals  roses." 

"Yes,  blossom  of  the  almond  tree,"  was 
her  reply.  "I  have  had  my  rose-bath.  You 
shall  have  yours  presently.  But  before 
Kondje  comes,  let  us  make  use  of  the  flying 
time  —  not  so?"  Djimlah  always  spoke 
Turkish,  to  the  consternation  of  my  poor 
ears,  which  had  been  out  of  training  for 
years.  Though  she  spoke  French  and  Eng- 
lish perfectly,  she  seldom  made  use  of  them. 
She  abhorred  anything  foreign  to  Mahome- 
tanism,  her  strong  affection  for  me  being  her 
only  exception. 

"Little  river,"  she  said  bluntly,  as  is  the 
Turkish  custom,  "I  hate  to  think  of  you  liv- 
ing away  in  that  half-civilized  country  of 
America.  You  really  must  stay  here  and  be 
married." 

"Do  you  think,  Djimlah,  my  dear,"  I 
asked,  matching  her  own  frankness,  "that  I 
should  be  happy  with  a  quarter  of  a  hus- 
band?" 

75 


She  laughed  till  the  tears  came  to  her  eyes. 

"I  have  just  been  paying  a  visit  to  Nas- 
sarah  and  Tsakran,"  I  went  on;  "but  Tsak- 
ran  is  a  little  kitten,  and  I  don't  think  it  mat- 
ters to  her  whether  she  is  the  first  or  second 
wife;  and  Nassarah,  for  the  sake  of  the  boys, 
does  not  mind  sharing  her  husband." 

"There  is  where  you  make  a  mistake,  my 
little  one,"  Djimlah  said.  "You  never  share 
your  husband.  What  a  man  gives  to  one 
woman  he  never  gives  to  another.  What  he  is 
to  his  first  wife  he  never  is  to  his  second  or 
third.  It  always  amuses  me  how  slow  you 
European  women  are  to  understand  men. 
You  put  up  with  the  greatest  outrages  in 
order  to  remain  the  only  wives.  A  man  is  not 
like  a  woman,  who  is  essentially  a  mother. 
A  man  by  nature  is  polygamous.  His  nature 
must  expand:  sometimes  it  is  more  than  one 
woman  that  he  must  love;  sometimes  he  gives 
himself  over  to  state  matters;  sometimes  it  is 
a  career  or  a  profession  that  he  needs.  B ut 
whatever  he  does,  the  love  of  one  woman  is 
76 


not  and  cannot  be  enough  to  occupy  him. 
When  a  man  has  a  nature  to  love  more 
than  one  woman,  what  happens  ?  According 
to  our  sacred  laws  he  may  marry  them.  They 
are  loved  and  honored  by  him,  and  the  chil- 
dren of  this  second  or  third  love  are  his  chil- 
dren, and  share  his  name  as  they  share  his 
property.  But  what  happens  in  your  coun- 
tries and  with  your  habits?  A  man  repudi- 
ates his  first  wife,  generally  with  a  great  deal 
of  scandal,  for  a  second.  He  gives  her  little 
money,  and  her  children  lose  their  father's 
companionship.  If  the  man  cannot  divorce 
his  wife,  he  leads  her  the  life  of  a  dog,  and 
lives  a  libertine  himself.  Or  if  he  loves  an- 
other woman,  and  she  loves  him,  and  they 
live  together,  the  woman  carries  a  burden  of 
shame,  and  the  children  born  out  of  their 
great  love  are  outcasts." 

As  Djimlah  spoke  of  our  system  her  blue 
eyes  widened,  her  long  earrings  shook,  and 
disgust  was  painted  on  her  beautiful  features. 
I  chuckled  inwardly,  remembering  some  lec- 

77 


tures  I  had  heard  in  America  in  which  the 
women  of  the  harem  were  spoken  of  as  most 
miserable  beings,  and  in  which  our  duty  was 
pointed  out  to  us  to  work  toward  their  deliv- 
erance. 

"Djimlah,"  I  said,  "you  speak  of  course 
from  your  experience,  as  perhaps  the  most 
loved  of  the  wives.  Suppose  to-morrow  your 
husband  were  to  cast  you  aside  and  bring 
into  the  household  a  younger  and  possibly  a 
handsomer  wife  —  what  then?" 

Djimlah's  pretty  face  lighted  up  with  a 
smile.  "You  dear,  dear  yavroum,  you  will 
never  understand.  If  my  husband  has  ten 
more  wives,  it  does  not  alter  my  position.  I 
shall  be  his  Djimlah  then  as  always.  He  will 
still  love  me  for  myself,  for  the  love  I  have  for 
him,  and  for  the  children  I  have  given  him." 

"But,  Djimlah,  wouldn't  that  love  be 
greater  if  he  loved  only  you,  and  shared  it 
with  no  one  else  ?  If  you  were  the  only  affec- 
tion in  his  life?" 

Djimlah  caressed  my  hand.  "My  little 
78 


one,  don't  make  this  mistake  in  life.  If  you 
were  the  most  intelligent  woman  in  the 
world,  the  most  entertaining,  the  most  bril- 
liant, the  most  beautiful,  you  could  never  be 
everything  to  your  husband.  That  is  the  way 
Allah  has  made  them;  that  is  the  way  all  of 
them  are  —  and  those  that  are  not  are  good 
for  nothing." 

"Djimlah,"  I  said  at  last,  perceiving  that 
she  would  never  see  my  point  of  view,  "how 
about  the  women?  Don't  they,  too,  need 
more  than  one  in  their  lives?" 

Djimlah  smiled  her  wise  smile  again. 
"  Yavroum,  women  are  not  like  men.  Wo- 
men, good  women,  natural  women,  are  mo- 
thers above  all.  Their  hearts  are  filled  the 
moment  they  become  mothers.  All  their  ef- 
fort, their  ambition,  their  love,  settles  on  the 
head  of  the  child." 

Just  then  Kondje  came  in,  carrying  a  small 
basket  full  of  rose-petals.  She  spoke  in  low 
tones  to  the  young  wife,  who  blushed  furi- 
ously, and  shyly  bade  me  good-night. 

79 


"Honored  Hanoum,"  the  young  girl  said 
to  me,  "may  I  be  so  blessed  as  to  have  the 
pleasure  of  giving  you  your  bath  of  roses?" 

"You  may,"  I  answered,  "if  you  will  call 
me  anything  else  except  'Honored  Hanoum.' 
I  can  stand  being  the  bride  of  the  brook  and 
the  cloud  of  the  sky,  but  I  draw  the  line  at 
being  'Honored.'  It  makes  me  feel  old  and 
venerable.  And,  besides,  you  know  I  have 
not  yet  a  husband,  so  I  can't  be  'Honored,' 
anyway." 

Kondje,  giggling,  took  down  my  hair, 
filled  it  with  rose-petals,  and  rubbed  them 
into  the  hair  and  scalp.  Afterwards  she  did 
the  same  to  my  body,  so  that  in  half  an  hour 
I  and  the  room  were  filled  with  the  odor 
of  roses,  and  I  went  to  sleep  dreaming  of 
flowers. 

The  following  days  revealed  to  me  a 
Djimlah  so  foreign  to  her  former  self  as  to  be 
an  entirely  new  person.  Even  her  beauty  had 
changed.  It  was  no  longer  the  audacious  al- 
lurement of  a  handsome  animal :  there  was 
80 


calm  and  repose  in  it.  She  was  still  a  woman 
for  men  to  love  desperately,  but  with  a  higher 
love,  if  one  less  maddening  than  the  one  she 
would  have  inspired  six  years  ago. 

One  night,  as  we  were  sitting  on  the  foot  of 
my  bed  and  talking  of  the  past,  I  said  to 
her:  — 

"  Djimlah,  you  have  changed  morally  and 
mentally  much  more  than  I  have  physically, 
though  your  change  has  been  for  the  better. 
What  has  done  it?" 

She  laughed,  and  there  was  a  little  scorn  in 
her  rippling  young  laugh.  "You  dear  little 
crest  of  the  wave,  because  you  have  been 
studying  and  running  around  the  world,  '-im- 
proving' and  'enlarging'  your  mind,  you 
think  that  you  know  something.  Why,  you 
are  ignorant  as  my  baby.  You  may  think  you 
are  ahead  of  me,  but  really  you  are  very  far 
behind.  The  mysteries  of  the  world,  which 
you  do  not  even  dream  of,  are  mine.  You 
will  never  know  them  until  you  love  a  man 
and  are  his.  Then  -  She  clasped  her 

81 


hands  over  her  breast,  and  her  face  changed 
its  expression.  It  was  lovely  with  a  loveliness 
mystic  and  holy.  She  leaned  towards  me,  and 
in  a  voice  tremulous  and  full  of  melody,  spoke 
of  her  motherhood.  "To  be  a  mother!  To 
see  the  pink  rosy  mouth  of  your  baby  seeking 
life  from  your  very  body!"  She  raised  her 
hands.  "  O  Allah !  how  good  you  are  to  wo- 
men !  No,  little  mountain-spring,  books  will 
never  teach  you  life  as  a  man  and  a  child  will. 
Books  may  feed  your  mind,  but  your  heart 
will  be  starved  —  and  human  beings  must 
live  through  the  heart." 

She  had  moved  me;  I  believed  her;  but 
habit  was  stronger  than  momentary  emotion. 
I  was  living  through  my  mind,  and  the  next 
minute  I  asked  her :  — 

"You  used  to  say  that  love  was  nothing  but 
a  matter  of  the  senses.  Did  you  find  it  so  ? " 

"At  first,  yes  —  then  all  at  once  it  changed. 

You  become  a  new  person  —  a  good  woman 

—  when  Allah  gives  you  a  child.    Something 

restful  comes  over  the  senses,  and  they  retire 

82 


to  the  background ;  they  no  longer  dominate 
love." 

"And  thus  a  woman  acquires  a  soul?"  I 
inquired  flippantly. 

She  replied  soberly :  — 

"A  woman  has  no  soul.  It  may  be  that  if 
she  had  she  would  spend  her  life  cultivating 
it,  and  forget  that  she  had  to  devote  herself  to 
those  to  whom  she  must  give  a  soul.  A  wo- 
man is  a  one-thought  creature.  Besides,  she 
stands  for  abnegation :  to  know  life,  she  must 
give,  always  give,  and  never  ask  for  anything 
in  return.  Through  giving  she  grows  — 
never  through  receiving,  for  then  she  shrinks." 

This  was  my  Djimlah  of  six  years  ago !  She 
had  travelled  far  and  fast  on  the  road  which 
leads  to  the  divine  throne,  through  her  love 
and  her  mother-love.  She  was  right:  books 
do  not  teach  life. 


IV 

VALIDE"  HANOUM,  THE  RESIGNED 
FIRST  WIFE 

THREE  days  after  my  arrival  in  this  Turk- 
ish household,  as  I  was  coming  out  of  the 
bathing-house,  I  was  presented  with  a  small 
basket  trimmed  with  gauze  and  flowers.  Ex- 
amining it,  I  found  that  it  contained  an  em- 
broidered scarf,  and  a  note  from  the  Valide* 
requesting  me,  if  willing,  to  spend  the  day 
with  her.  I  wras  delighted  —  as  was  Djimlah 
—  at  this  mark  of  consideration  from  the 
Valid.?. 

The  older  Hanoum  received  me  at  the 
threshold  of  her  apartment  with  great  cere- 
mony. We  both  salaamed  to  the  ground  in 
the  proper  salutation,  the  temena,  the  Valide, 
as  the  older,  beginning  first. 

This  day  I  spent  with  her  was  one  of  the 
most  interesting  of  my  stay.  Very  rarely 
84 


have  I  been  so  fortunate  as  to  meet  a  woman 
who  had  so  little  of  the  common  feminine  pet- 
tiness in  her  nature.  The  Valide  Hanoum 
was  easily  queen  of  her  household.  She  was 
in  her  thirty-eighth  year,  but  retained  much 
of  what  must  once  have  been  her  chief  claim 
to  beauty,  her  splendid  figure.  I  do  not  think 
her  face  could  ever  have  been  considered 
beautiful  in  the  East,  for  their  standard  is 
very  high.  In  America  she  would  have  been 
called  a  very  handsome  woman.  She  was  of 
the  brunette  type,  with  wonderful  brown 
hair,  clear  complexion,  and  large  gray  eyes. 
But  her  great  charm  was  her  personality. 
She  directed  the  conversation  in  French,  as 
she  had  heard  me  say  the  day  of  my  arrival 
that  Turkish  was  bothering  me.  According 
to  Turkish  standards  she  was  highly  edu- 
cated. She  knew  Arabic  and  Persian  litera- 
ture well,  and,  through  translations,  Greek. 
Though  she  spoke  French  fluently,  she  was 
little  acquainted  with  French  writers;  and  in 
speaking  the  language  she  used  Oriental 

85 


idioms  entirely.  She  was  a  great  admirer  of 
the  Greek  tragedians,  and  thought  Sophocles 
understood  women  well  —  "as  well  as  a  man 
can,"  she  added  with  a  whimsical  smile. 

Her  breadth  of  character  struck  me  as  so 
unusual  that  I  told  her,  after  I  had  spent  half 
the  day  with  her,  that  were  I  to  spend  a  few 
years  with  her  I  should  become  a  nice  person. 
She  liked  the  compliment  very  much,  and 
said  so.  Turkish  women  do  not  make  our 
pretence  of  disparaging  compliments  to 
themselves.  After  a  second  thought  she  said 
earnestly :  — 

"  You  would  not  like  our  life  after  a  while." 

"Why?"  I  asked. 

She  considered  for  a  few  minutes.  "For 
many  reasons;  but  uppermost  for  your  blood. 
There  is  no  use  going  against  nature.  For 
generations  you  have  led  a  different  life,  and 
you  could  not  accept  ours." 

"Do  you  think  that  it  would  be  impossible 
for  European  women  to  come  and  live  with 
you?" 
86 


"No,  my  child,  not  impossible,  for  many 
European  women  have  married  our  men  and 
lived  happily ;  but  it  would  be  impossible  for 
you.  By  the  way,"  -  she  was  smiling  now, 
and  I  knew  that  it  was  coming,  —  "I  shall  be 
very  happy  to  see  you  marry,  yavroum,  to 
see  you  happy,  for  you  have  become  dear  to 
me,  the  little  I  have  seen  of  you." 

I  have  learned  to  expect  this  refrain  of 
"you  must  marry";  for  the  Turkish  women 
consider  marriage  the  acme  of  human  happi- 
ness. I  have  come  since  to  think  like  them, 
but  at  the  time  it  did  annoy  me. 

The  Valide  was  very  unlike  my  friend 
Djimlah.  What  she  knew  of  our  life  she  did 
not  condemn.  She  even  considered  certain 
ways  of  ours  superior  to  theirs.  The  key- 
note of  her  character  was  tolerance  and  kind- 
ness. In  the  course  of  the  conversation  I  told 
her  of  what  I  had  asked  Djimlah  on  my  first 
night  in  the  household,  and  of  Djimlah's  ways 
of  looking  at  things. 

"  Do  you  agree  with  her,  Valide  Hanoum  ?  " 

87 


I  asked,  burning  with  the  desire  to  hear  her 
views  on  the  subject. 

She  looked  before  her  for  a  few  minutes, 
as  if  she  were  considering  either  Djimlah's 
words,  or  whether  she  should  really  take  the 
trouble  to  enlighten  my  poor  brain.  After 
a  while  she  drew  from  her  embroidered  bag 
some  tobacco,  took  a  sheet  of  tissue  paper 
out  of  a  book  three  inches  long  by  one  wide, 
and  made  herself  a  cigarette.  A  slave  pre- 
sented her  the  flame  of  a  match  between  her 
palms.  The  Valide  lighted  her  cigarette  and 
took  two  or  three  puffs,  holding  it  with  a  pair 
of  gold  tongs,  which  hung  by  a  golden  chain 
from  her  waist. 

"When  I  married  my  husband,"  she  said, 
"I  was  only  fifteen  and  he  was  seventeen. 
Within  four  years  two  big  boys  were  born  to 
us."  She  raised  her  eyes  to  the  ceiling  and 
thanked  Allah.  "I  was  very  happy  —  terri- 
bly happy."  She  lost  herself  for  a  few  min- 
utes in  that  happiness.  "When  my  husband 
told  me  that  he  wished  to  take  another  wife  to 


his  bosom,  my  heart  was  knifed  to  the  mid- 
dle. I  cried  for  days  and  days.  I  walked 
about  like  one  in  a  dream ;  but  all  the  while  I 
knew  that  he  was  right,  that  the  thing  had  to 
be  done.  After  a  while  I  fought  myself  down, 
but  I  could  not  live  with  the  second  wife. 
I  told  him  so.  He  bought  me  a  beautiful 
house  at  Scutari,  and  I  moved  there  with  my 
retinue  and  slaves.  Of  course  my  husband 
was  to  come  and  see  us  whenever  he  liked. 
This  arrangement  pained  him  very  much; 
and  in  a  few  months  he  came  to  tell  me  that 
he  had  given  up  the  idea  of  second  marriage. 
We  lived  for  another  year,  when  I  found  out 
that  the  other  woman  was  dying  for  love  of 
my  husband,  and  that  he  still  longed  for  her. 
I  knew  also  that  my  life  was  no  longer  the 
same.  I  made  them  marry,  and  I  went  back 
again  to  my  house  at  Scutari.  I  was  young, 
I  was  proud,  I  was  hurt.  I  did  not  see  why 
my  husband  should  want  another  wife.  Wo- 
men when  young  don't  understand  their  hus- 
bands very  well.  Two  years  passed,  a  little 

89 


girl  was  born  to  them,  and  they  named  her 
after  me.  My  husband  came  to  see  me  very 
often,  but  I  could  not  feel  the  same  toward 
him.  He  understood  it,  and  never  asked  for 
more  than  I  could  give  him.  My  child,  can 
you  believe  it,  but  I  was  glad,  glad  that  he 
suffered  for  me  —  that  if  I  could  not  make 
him  love  me,  at  least  I  could  make  him 
suffer. 

"At  the  end  of  two  years  the  mother  and 
child  came  to  see  me.  The  child  was  very  deli- 
cate; the  mother  looked  dying.  She  stayed 
with  me  for  a  few  days;  and  when  it  was 
time  to  go,  she  could  not  go  —  I  could  not  let 
her.  I  understood  many  things  then.  When 
I  told  my  husband  that  I  was  to  keep  them, 
he  fell  to  my  knees  and  cried  like  a  boy." 

She  leaned  over  and  took  my  hand.  "  You 
never  know,  yavroum,  in  what  way  Allah  is 
going  to  help  you  to  come  out  of  your  mean 
self.  But  he  is  always  watching  and  waiting 
to  give  us  our  chance.  He  gave  me  mine  and 
I  took  it,  and  with  it  came  back  the  love  of 
90 


my  husband,  a  newer  and  younger  love,  a 
love  that  was  tried. 

"After  that  Allah  marked  me  for  his  own, 
and  I  travelled  the  road  of  sorrow.  It  is  a 
long,  long  road,  and  you  follow  it  bleeding. 
But  at  the  end  Allah  shows  you  his  face,  and 
peace  descends  upon  you.  You  understand 
many  things  that  you  never  understood  be- 
fore, and  the  people  become  your  brothers. 
The  way  I  was  to  know  sorrow  was  of  the 
hardest ;  my  first-born  boy  was  killed  before 
my  eyes.  A  few  months  later  a  baby  girl 
came  to  rne  in  this  world.  When  I  learned  to 
love  her  and  she  to  put  her  arms  around  me, 
Allah  took  her  from  me.  In  my  motherly 
grief  I  forgot  my  husband  and  my  duties 
towards  him.  That  is  the  way  always  with 
women.  I  made  his  home  sad  and  unlivable. 
It  was  at  that  time  that  the  Sultan  gave  to 
my  pasha  a  beautiful  young  woman  from  the 
palace.  As  our  ways  arc,  he  had  to  free  her 
and  marry  her.  Though  he  did  so,  he  has 
never  made  her  his  wife,  as  he  did  not  raise 

91 


JJUU. 


her  veil  after  the  wedding  ceremony.  She 
was  confided  to  me  to  take  care  of  and  to  pro- 
tect. Her  life  was  not  very  happy,  and  I  did 
all  I  could  to  make  it  so.  After  our  master 
married  Djimlah,  she  dared  even  speak  to 
him  about  A'ishe;  but  he  was  quite  stern  in 
the  old  creed,  and  he  did  not  believe  in  gift- 
wives.  Djimlah,  however,  gave  her  her 
second-born  boy  to  love  and  bring  up  as  her 
very  own,  and  in  this  way  to  learn  the  joy  of 
motherhood.  The  child  was  taken  to  her  im- 
mediately after  its  birth.  Djimlah  had  an 
idea  that  should  our  master  chance  to  see  the 
beauty  from  the  palace  with  his  child,  he 
could  not  but  love  her.  It  hurts  us  all  to  have 
a  young  and  beautiful  woman  among  us  who 
may  never  know  a  good  man's  love.  But  it 
was  no  use.  Our  pasha  went  to  her  and  saw 
the  boy,  but  the  adopted  mother  still  remains 
an  official  wife  only.  She  is  very  happy,  how- 
ever, with  her  little  gift-son,  and  he  loves  her 
more  than  he  does  his  own  mother.  Of  course 
he  does  not  know  that  Djimlah  really  is  his 
92 


mother.  Ever  since  that  arrangement,  though, 
I  think  there  is  more  happiness  all  round  in 
the  house,  for  Allah  has  sent  his  blessing  for  a 
good  act." 

I  could  not  help  asking  how  Djimlah  crept 
into  the  household. 

"I  gave  her  to  my  husband,"  was  the  quick 
reply,  "and  it  was  the  happiest  deed  of  my 
life.  You  see,  yavroum,  when  I  gave  myself 
to  the  luxury  of  sorrow  I  could  not  easily 
come  back  to  the  life's  joys.  The  second  wife 
was  sickly,  and  the  third  only  official.  And 
one  night,  when  it  was  cold  and  the  wind 
blew,  I  thought  of  my  master  all  alone," 
she  spoke  as  if  she  were  describing  one  per- 
ishing on  a  desert  island,  —  "and  I  thought 
of  my  wickedness  and  cast  about  in  my  mind 
for  a  happier  inmate  to  come  to  our  home. 
Our  Djimlah  has  proved  to  be  Allah's  gift  to 
us  all.  My  little  girl,  who  was  born  after 
Djimlah's  three  sons,  and  named  after  her, 
is  the  joy  of  my  old  age."  (She  was  thirty- 
eight,  remember.)  "This  little  girl  is  Al- 

93 


lah's  new  proof  that  he  has  forgiven  me  my 
selfish  grief." 

"  Valide"  Hanoum,  in  your  heart  you  do  not 
approve  of  men  being  allowed  to  have  more 
than  one  wife,  do  you  ? "  I  asked. 

"  But  I  do,  yavroum,"  she  said  vehemently; 
"that  is  why  I  told  you  my  life,  so  that  you 
could  see  how  much  happier  we  all  are  if 
things  are  done  as  Allah  ordained  them." 

"But,  Valide  Hanoum,"  I  persisted,  "you 
do  not  really  think  that  God  meant  men  to 
have  more  than  one  wife?" 

"I  think  that  he  must,  my  little  one,  other- 
wise I  do  not  see  why  he  has  created  them 
different  from  us  —  why  they  do  not  have  the 
same  maternal  instincts  as  we  have." 

"Just  the  same,  Valide  Hanoum,"  I  said 
with  some  warmth,  "I  do  not  think  that  God 
meant  it;  and  if  so  many  privileges  were  not 
allowed  to  men  they  would  content  them- 
selves with  one  wife." 

Here  the  Valide  showed  her  tact  and  her 
sense  of  humor,  for  she  leaned  over,  took 
94 


me  to  her,  kissed  me  tenderly,  and  said  that 
after  all  Allah  might  have  meant  it  while  God 
did  not.  "You  see,  yavroum,  things  are  dif- 
ferent, perhaps,  with  you  than  they  are  with 
us." 

That  the  Valide  did  not  mind  my  hetero- 
doxy she  manifested  by  inviting  me  to  spend 
another  day  with  her,  when  she  took  me  on 
a  long  drive,  on  her  way  to  a  shrine  to  pray. 
When  she  left  the  mosque  she  told  me  gayly 
that  she  had  prayed  to  Allah  for  me  only  that 
day,  and  that  she  knew  I  could  not  go  on  now 
without  God's  blessing,  and  that  a  husband 
sooner  or  later  was  coming  to  me.  On  our 
way  back  she  told  me  that  she  was  expecting 
her  little  daughter-in-law,  who  was  not  very 
strong,  and  who  needed  the  care  and  advice 
of  the  old.  "She  is  coming  with  her  mother 
and  baby.  My  son,  too,  will  be  with  them. 
You  must  see  them,"  she  said  proudly,  "for 
there  are  not  two  lilies  more  beautiful  in  this 
world  than  my  boy  and  his  bride." 


THE    GIFT-WIFE   FROM   THE 
SULTAN'S   PALACE 

FROM  what  the  Valide  Hanoum  had  told 
me  about  Ai'she  Hanoum,  Selim  Pasha's  third 
wife,  it  was  natural  I  should  take  a  special 
interest  in  this  poor  lady,  who  was  wife  and 
no  wife,  and  mother  only  by  proxy. 

I  had  known  before  that,  when  the  Sultan 
of  Turkey  particularly  desired  to  honor  one 
of  his  pashas,  he  presented  him  with  one  of 
the  beautiful  women  who  adorned  his  palace 
and  who  had  not  yet  become  his  wife.  I  also 
knew  that,  according  to  Mussulman  etiquette, 
the  pasha  had  to  free  her  and  make  her  his 
wife.  But  I  had  never  before  met  such  a  wo- 
man, and  until  I  knew  her  history  I  had 
taken  no  particular  interest  in  Aishe  Ha- 
noum, beyond  noticing  her  beauty;  for  she 
was  of  a  very  retiring  disposition.  I  had 
96 


thought  her  one  of  those  persons  who  are 
content  to  live  their  lives  in  a  dream  and  let 
reality  pass  by. 

But  meeting  her,  after  I  knew  her  story,  I 
asked  her  if  she  was  not  going  to  invite  me  to 
spend  a  day  with  her. 

"Indeed  I  am,"  she  replied,  "only  it  is  not 
my  turn.  I  must  find  out  when  the  second 
wife  wishes  to  have  you;  for  my  turn  must 
wait  on  hers." 

"  She  told  me  that  she  was  not  well  enough 
to  see  me." 

"  Oh !  then  will  you  spend  to-morrow  with 
me?" 

The  next  morning,  I  had  just  finished  my 
morning  toilet  when  a  slave  came  to  conduct 
me  to  Ai'she  Hanoum,  from  whom  she  pre- 
sented me  with  an  indoor  veil.  I  arranged  it 
on  my  hair,  to  show  my  appreciation  of  the 
gift,  and  followed  the  slave  to  the  floor  below, 
where  her  mistress  lived. 

When  I  entered  her  apartments,  I  found 
her  kneeling  before  an  easel,  deep  in  work. 

97 


As  the  slave  announced  me,  she  rose  from  the 
ground  and  came  to  me  with  outstretched 
hand.  It  struck  me  as  curious  that  she  of- 
fered to  shake  hands,  instead  of  using  the 
temena,  the  Turkish  form  of  salutation,  since 
I  knew  her  to  be  extremely  punctilious  in  the 
customs  of  her  nation.  I  suppose  she  did  this 
to  make  me  feel  more  at  home. 

"Welcome,  young  Hanoum,"  she  said, 
after  kissing  me  on  both  cheeks. 

"Do  you  paint?"  I  asked,  going  toward 
the  easel,  disguising  my  surprise  at  meeting 
with  such  disregard  of  Mussulman  customs 
in  this  orthodox  household. 

"No,  not  painting,  just  playing.  It  is  only 
an  impression,  not  a  reproduction  of  one  of 
Allah's  realities."  Good  Mussulmans  do  not 
believe  in  "reproducing  Allah's  realities"; 
yet  there  stood  on  the  easel  a  charming  pas- 
tel. Even  orthodox  Moslems,  I  saw,  were  not 
above  beating  the  devil  round  the  stump. 

"How    very    beautiful!"     I    exclaimed. 
"Ai'shd  Hanoum,  you  are  an  artist." 
98 


"Pray!  pray!  young  Hanoum,"  she  pro- 
tested, a  little  frightened  I  thought,  "pray 
do  not  say  such  things.  I  am  not  an  artist. 
I  only  play  with  the  colors." 

"Let  me  see  some  more  of  your  playing," 
I  persisted. 

Rather  reluctantly,  though  wishing  to  com- 
ply with  her  guest's  desires,  she  brought  out 
a  large  portfolio,  containing  several  pastels 
and  water-colors,  and  we  sat  down  on  a  rug 
to  examine  them. 

Whether  they  were  well  done  or  not  I  can- 
not tell;  but  they  were  full  of  life  and  happi- 
ness. The  curious  part  was  that,  whenever 
she  painted  any  outdoor  life,  she  painted  it 
from  her  window,  and  on  the  canvas  first  was 
the  window,  and  then  through  it  you  saw  the 
landscape  as  she  saw  it. 

The  more  I  looked  at  her  work,  the  more 
enthusiastic  I  grew.  "You  must  be  very 
talented,"  I  said,  turning  to  her.  "It  is  a 
pity  that  you  cannot  go  abroad  to  study." 

"Rut  T  have  studied  many  years  here." 

99 


"That  is  all  very  well,"  I  said,  still  busy 
looking  at  the  pictures;  "just  the  same  you 
ought  to  go  to  Paris  to  study." 

"What  for?"  she  asked. 

"Because  I  think  you  have  a  great  deal  of 
talent  which  unfortunately  is  wasted  in  a 
harem."  As  I  spoke,  I  raised  my  eyes. 

Ordinarily  I  am  not  a  coward,  though  I  do 
run  from  a  mouse;  but  when  my  eyes  met  her 
finely  pencilled  ones,  there  was  a  curious  look 
of  anger  in  them  that  made  a  shiver  go  down 
my  back.  "If  I  have  said  anything  to  offend 
you,"  I  said,  "I  beg  you  to  forgive  me.  Be- 
lieve me  it  was  my  enthusiasm." 

She  smiled  in  a  most  charming  way.  If  she 
had  been  angry  it  had  gone  quickly  by. 

"  But  why  do  you  wish  me  to  go  to  Paris?" 
she  asked  again. 

"I  don't  know,"  I  said,  "except  that  Paris 
is  nearer  Turkey  than  any  other  great  centre, 
and  I  feel  that  you  ought  to  have  the  advan- 
tage of  being  where  you  could  get  all  the  help 
possible." 

ICO 


"What  for?"  she  inquired. 

I  began  to  feel  uncomfortable.  I  knew  her 
very  little,  and  this  was  the  first  time  I  ever 
visited  a  former  Seraigli  (one  who  has  been 
an  inmate  of  the  Imperial  palace). 

"Because,"  I  answered  lamely,  "when  a 
person  has  talent  she  generally  goes  to  Paris 
or  to  some  other  great  artistic  centre." 

"What  for?"  again  insisted  the  question. 

If  I  had  not  been  in  a  harem,  and  in  the 
presence  of  a  woman  of  whom  I  was  some- 
what afraid,  my  answer  would  have  been, 
"  Well,  if  you  are  foolish  enough  not  to  know, 
why,  what  is  the  use  of  telling  you?"  In- 
stead, while  that  exquisite  hand  was  lying 
on  my  arm  and  those  big  almond-shaped  eyes 
were  holding  mine,  I  tried  to  find  a  way  of 
explaining. 

"  If  you  were  free  to  go,  you  could  see  mas- 
terpieces, you  could  study  various  methods  of 
painting,  and  if  it  were  in  you,  you  might 
become  great  in  turn." 

"What  for?"  was  the  calm  inquiry. 

101 


She  was  very  beautiful;  not  of  the  Turkish 
type,  but  of  the  pure  Circassian,  with  ex- 
quisite lines  and  a  very  low,  musical  voice, 
and  of  all  things  on  this  earth  I  am  most  sus- 
ceptible to  physical  beauty.  At  that  particu- 
lar moment,  however,  I  should  have  derived 
great  pleasure  if  I  could  have  smacked  her 
pretty  mouth. 

"Well,"  I  said  calmly,  though  I  was  irri- 
tated, "  if  you  had  a  great  talent,  and  became 
very  famous,  you  would  not  only  have  all  the 
money  you  wanted,  but  glory  and  admira- 
tion." 

"What  for?"  she  repeated  with  inhuman 
monotony. 

"For  heaven's  sake,  Ai'she  Hanoum,"  I 
cried,  "I  don't  know  what  for;  but  if  I  could, 
I  should  like  to  become  famous  and  have 
glory  and  lots  of  money." 

"What  for?" 

"Because  then  I  could  go  all  over  the 
world,  and  see  everything  that  is  to  be  seen, 
and  meet  all  sorts  of  interesting  people." 

102 


"What  for?" 

"Hanoum  doudou"  I  cried,  lapsing  into 
the  Turkish  I  had  spoken  as  a  child.  "Are 
you  trying  to  make  a  fool  of  me,  or  - 

She  put  her  palms  forward  on  the  floor,  and 
then  her  head  went  down  and  she  laughed 
immoderately.  I  laughed  too,  considerably 
relieved  to  have  done  with  her  "what  for's." 

She  drew  me  to  her  as  if  I  wyere  a  baby,  and 
took  me  on  her  lap.  "  You  would  do  all  these 
things  and  travel  about  like  a  mail-bag  be- 
cause you  think  it  would  make  you  happy, 
don't  you,  yamoum?"  she  asked. 

"Of  course  I  should  be  happy." 

"Is  this  why  you  ran  away  from  home  — 
to  get  famous  and  rich?" 

She  was  speaking  to  me  precisely  as  if  I 
were  a  little  bit  of  a  thing,  and  was  to  be 
coaxed  out  of  my  foolishness. 

"I  have  neither  fame  nor  riches,"  I  an- 
swered, "so  we  need  not  waste  our  breath." 

"Sorry,  yavroum,  sorry,"  she  said  sym- 
pathetically. "I  should  have  liked  you  to  get 

103 


both;  then  you  would  see  that  it  would  not 
have  made  you  happy.  Happiness  is  not 
acquired  from  satisfied  desires." 

"What  is  happiness,  then?"  I  asked. 

"Allah  kerim  [God  only  can  explain  it]. 
But  it  comes  not  from  what  we  possess,  but 
from  what  we  let  others  possess;  and  no 
amount  of  fame  would  have  made  me  leave 
my  home  and  go  among  alien  people  to  learn 
their  ways  of  doing  something  which  I  take 
great  pleasure  in  doing  in  my  own  way."  She 
kissed  me  twice  on  the  cheek  and  put  me 
down  by  her.  "You  are  a  dear  little  one," 
she  said  as  she  began  to  prepare  a  cigarette. 

"Ai'she  Hanoum,"  I  asked,  "don't  you 
really  sometimes  wish  you  were  a  free  Euro- 
pean woman?" 

She  wet  the  tissue  paper  of  her  cigarette 
and  gave  it  a  careful  twist.  "I  have  never 
seen  a  European  man  to  whom  I  should  like 
to  belong,"  she  informed  me. 

"Goodness  gracious,  why  should  you  be- 
long to  any  man  at  all?" 

104 


"But  I  should  not  like  to  be  one  of  those 
detached  females  that  come  to  us  from  Ingle- 
terra  and  your  America.  They  are  repul- 
sive to  me.  A  human  being  is  like  a  tree  or  a 
flower;  it  must  be  productive  and  useful.  A 
woman  must  have  a  lord  and  children." 

"But  you  have  no  children,"  I  could  not 
help  saying. 

"Have  I  not,  though?"  She  clapped  her 
hands,  and  to  the  slave  who  came  in  she  said, 
"Bring  in  my  son,  please." 

A  few  minutes  later  the  young  bey  was 
brought  in.  He  was  a  sturdy  little  fellow,  full 
of  health  and  good  looks.  No  sooner  was  he 
in  sight  than  mother  and  child  were  kissing 
and  loving.  When,  after  a  few  minutes,  he 
was  taken  away,  Ai'she  Hanoum  informed  me 
that  till  he  was  twelve  years  old  she  was  to 
teach  and  instruct  him  herself.  "We  are  al- 
ways together  except  when  I  have  guests. 
Then  the  child  is  out  to  play.  You  say  I  have 
no  children !  I  wish  you  would  stay  here  till 
the  day  I  am  to  give  my  daughters  away." 


"Your  daughters?"  I  repeated. 

"Yes,  I  am  liberating  two  of  my  young 
slaves.  I  bought  them  when  they  were  ten 
years  old.  I  instructed  them  myself;  and 
now  they  are  going  to  be  freed  and  given  into 
marriage,  to  be  happy  in  the  love  they  will 
give  and  take." 

I  thought  that  in  her  voice  there  was 
a  sad  note  as  she  said  the  last  words;  but 
then  I  am  a  very  imaginative  person,  and 
my  imagination  is  apt  to  play  tricks  with 
me. 

"I  am  going  to  stay,"  I  said.  "The  Va- 
lide  [the  first  wife]  asked  me  to  wait  for  the 
wedding,  and  also  for  the  arrival  of  her  son 
and  his  young  wife." 

"Oh!  I  am  indeed  very  pleased.  You 
know,  yavroum,  we  all  like  you,  and  should 
be  very  glad  to  have  you  be  happy  in  the  love 
of  a  good  man." 

"Ai'she  Hanoum,"  I  asked,  "are  you 
happy?" 

She  looked  at  me  for  a  minute  or  so  while 
106 


she  inhaled  and  then  exhaled  the  smoke  of 
her  dainty  cigarette. 

"Would  you  like  to  know?" 

I  nodded. 

"I  will  tell  you  all  about  myself —  but  you 
must  not  make  me  forget  that  you  are  my 
guest,  and  that  I  must  look  after  your  com- 
fort." She  clapped  her  hands,  and  a  young, 
pretty  slave  came  in  to  take  orders.  I  fancied 
that  the  slave  had  been  crying. 

"You  are  not  the  one  I  called  for,"  said 
Ai'she"  Hanoum;  "and  what  is  more,  you 
must  stop  coming  in  when  I  call." 

The  tears  began  to  trickle  down  the  cheeks 
of  the  young  girl.  I  was  quite  surprised.  In 
all  my  experience  with  Turkish  women,  I 
never  saw  them  stern  with  their  slaves,  and 
this  young  girl  looked  particularly  miserable. 

The  official  wife  clapped  her  hands  again, 
and  this  time  another  slave  came  in. 

"  Bring  us  in  some  sherbets  and  some  cakes 
and  cold  water." 

The  slaves  departed,  and  in  a  little  while 

107 


the  one  who  had  been  crying  returned.  Aishe* 
Hanoum  looked  at  the  girl,  who,  elaborately 
unconscious  of  the  stern  look,  put  her  tray 
down,  brought  near  us  two  low  tables,  inlaid 
with  mother-of-pearl,  and  disposed  the  eat- 
ables on  them. 

"Have  I  not  told  you  not  to  wait  on  me?" 

The  girl  crossed  her  arms  on  her  breast  and 
stood  motionless.  She  was  very  pretty;  rather 
tall,  with  glorious  copper-colored  hair,  and 
luminous  eyes. 

"What  will  the  young  Hanoum  here  think 
of  your  disobedience  to  me?"  the  mistress 
asked. 

The  girl  looked  at  me  through  her  tears. 

"I  am  sure  that  if  the  young  Hanoum 
knew  of  the  sorrow  that  is  eating  my  poor 
heart,  she  would  take  my  part,"  she  said,  with 
great  pathos  in  her  voice. 

"I  am  inclined  to  think  she  would,"  said 
her  mistress,  "for  I  am  afraid  the  young 
Hanoum  is  not  very  practical." 

In  an  instant  the  young  girl  was  prostrated 
1 08 


before  me,  kissing  my  hands,  kissing  my 
feet,  and  imploring  me  in  the  name  of  all  the 
flowers  that  grow  on  great  Allah's  land  to 
hear  her  and  intercede  with  her  mistress. 

I  took  the  child's  hand  into  mine  and  tried 
to  comfort  her ;  then  turning  to  her  mistress 
I  begged  to  know  the  cause  of  her  grief. 

"I  will  tell  you,  though  I  am  afraid  you  are 
the  wrong  person." 

At  a  bound  the  slave  was  by  her  mistress. 
Her  greenish  eyes  were  dark  blue  and  fiery. 
"  If  you  present  my  case  it  is  lost.  Let  me  have 
the  word ;  let  me  show  her  my  heart ;  for  it  is 
my  heart  she  is  to  judge,  not  yours.  Be  just, 
my  mistress,  since  you  give  me  this  chance." 

"  Suppose  we  put  it  off.  Suppose  Hanoum 
Djimlah  be  the  judge,  and  not  this  Hanoum 
here.  She  does  not  know  our  ways  very 
much.  She  is  not  of  our  faith,  and  she  is 
young  in  experience.  She  has  not  yet  a  lord 
to  her  heart,"  the  mistress  explained. 

The  slave  drew  herself  up  and  fairly 
towered  above  us.  Her  little  hands  were 

109 


clasped  tightly  on  her  bosom.  She  threw  her 
head  back  and  looked  at  her  mistress.  There 
was  defiance  in  her  whole  attitude. 

"You  might  just  as  well  say  that  you  want 
to  cheat  me  out  of  the  chance  you  offered  to 
give  me." 

Aishe  Hanoum  sighed  and  gave  in.  "  Serve 
us  first  with  something,  for  we  are  thirsty." 

The  slave  poured  out  some  sherbet  in  the 
tall  golden  goblets  —  a  present  to  Aishe' 
Hanoum  from  the  Palace  —  and  ministered 
to  our  wants;  then  she  took  her  place  on  the 
floor,  crosslegged,  and  said  to  her  mistress :  — 

"You  are  not  to  speak,  beauty,  at  all,  till 
I  have  done." 

"Very  well,  foolish,"  said  the  mistress. 

"Young  Hanoum,  my  story  is  not  very 
long,  so  I  will  not  tire  your  kind  ears  with  my 
miserable  woes.  I  only  want  justice,  and  may 
Allah  help  you  to  help  me.  I  was  five  years 
old  when  I  was  given  to  my  mistress  here.  I 
have  been  faithful,  good,  patient,  obedient, 
loving  to  her.  I  have  never  vexed  her.  When 
no 


I  was  fourteen  years  old,  she  wanted  to  free 
me  and  give  me  as  a  wife  to  a  man.  Why 
should  I  be  given  to  a  man  when  I  want  to 
stay  here?  I  pleaded  and  pleaded,  and  she 
said  that  I  might  stay  two  years  more.  The 
two  years  passed  as  a  day,  and  I  was  again  to 
be  given  as  a  wife.  I  pleaded  and  cried  again, 
and  my  mistress  said  that  I  might  have  two 
years  more.  Young  Hanoum,  have  you  ever 
watched  the  clouds  on  Allah's  blue  rug? 
Those  years  granted  to  me,  faded  from  my 
unhappy  eyes  as  quickly  as  they,  and  for  days 
now  she  will  not  speak  to  me  because  I  will 
not  go.  But  I  stay  outside  this  door  and  wait 
on  her  just  the  same.  She  says  that  this  time 
it  is  to  a  very  nice,  young,  wealthy  man  she 
is  going  to  marry  me.  But  what  is  a  man  to 
me?  It  is  my  mistress  I  want;  it  is  her  face 
that  must  gladden  daily  my  miserable  exist- 
ence. It  is  here  by  her  that  I  want  to  live  and 
die.  Oh!  young  Hanoum,  give  me  justice; 
and  may  the  cypress  tree  that  grows  by  the 
grave  of  your  dear  ones  defy  all  the  winds!" 

in 


Thereupon  the  girl  began  to  cry ;  and  between 
her  moans  she  continued:  "This  mistress  is 
for  me  what  to  the  trees  are  the  leaves,  what 
to  the  birds  are  the  wings,  what  to  the  little 
babies  is  a  mother.  She  says  if  I  do  not 
marry  she  will  sell  me  to  some  one." 

I  can  give  here  the  words,  but  they  cannot 
show  the  pathos,  the  passion  that  the  girl  put 
in  them.  It  made  my  heart  melt  within  me, 
not  from  pity  for  the  slave,  but  from  envy  for 
the  mistress.  Think  of  owning  such  a  faithful 
creature ! 

"I  have  heard  your  side,"  I  said;  "and 
now  you  would  better  go,  and  I  will  talk  it 
over  with  your  mistress." 

The  slave  came  to  me,  kissed  my  hand 
ever  so  tenderly,  and  left  the  room. 

"A'ishe  Hanoum,"  I  asked,  "why  do  you 
want  the  child  to  be  married  and  leave  you, 
since  her  happiness  is  with  you?" 

"You  do  not  understand  all  the  circum- 
stances, yavroum;  that  is  why  you  ask  me. 
You  see  she  is  mine,  and  I  can  free  her  and 

112 


-ZAJU. 


make  a  home  for  her.  If  I  die  to-morrow, 
what  will  become  of  her  ?  She  might  be  freed, 
and  she  might  not.  In  the  last  case  she  would 
have  to  belong  to  some  one  else  for  seven 
years  before  being  freed.  Or  she  might  be 
changing  hands  all  the  time.  I  love  her;  she 
is  my  little  girl,  for  I  brought  her  up;  and  I 
want  to  see  her  marry  and  have  babies  of  her 
own.  She  can  see  me  all  she  wishes  to.  But 
what  she  wants  is  to  feel  that  she  belongs  to 
me.  She  is  getting  old.  It  is  time  for  her  to  be 
wife  and  mother.  She  is  so  beautiful;  her 
figure  is  so  perfect.  It  would  be  a  pity  to 
waste  all  that  beauty  in  life." 

"  But  she  will  be  unhappy  if  she  goes  away 
from  you." 

"No;  she  does  not  know.  A  woman  is 
never  so  happy  as  in  the  love  she  bears  to  her 
little  ones  and  to  the  giver  of  them." 

"What  will  you  do?"  I  asked.  "Will  you 
really  sell  her  to  somebody  else?" 

"No,  indeed;  but  I  was  going  to  send  her 
away  for  a  while.  Only  she  is  of  such  a  pas- 


sionate  nature  she  might  do  violence  to  her- 
self. I  have  to  act  with  great  discretion." 

"What  manner  of  man  is  the  one  you  want 
to  marry  her  to  ?  She  probably  does  not  fancy 
him." 

"I  have  tried  hard  to  have  her  see  him 
from  the  window,"  said  Ai'she  Hanoum 
laughingly;  "but  every  time  I  take  her  to  the 
window  and  bid  her  look,  she  closes  her  eyes. 
She  will  be  very  happy  indeed,  and  will  have 
a  slave  of  her  own,  but  she  is  obstinate." 

"Why  not  let  her  wait  for  a  while?"  I 
suggested. 

"I  am  afraid  of  losing  this  good  chance. 
I  want  to  see  all  of  them  that  are  of  age  well 
provided  for." 

"  Suppose,"  I  said,  "  that  I  decide  that  you 
are  to  let  the  girl  alone?" 

She  laughed  her  merry  little  laugh,  and 
looked  so  beautiful  that  I  wondered  how  a 
woman  with  such  a  wonderful  beauty  as  hers 
could  be  given  to  two  men  and  still  remain 
unloved  by  them. 

114 


"  Yavroum,  you  would  not  really  decide  to 
do  anything  so  foolish,  and  destine  such  a 
beautiful  handiwork  of  Allah's  to  barren- 
ness ?  Besides,  while  she  was  telling  her  woes 
to  you,  I  found  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty.  I 
am  going  to  offer  to  let  her  live  with  me  after 
her  marriage.  At  the  end  of  a  year  she  will 
know  that  I  was  right." 

She  clapped  her  hands.   The  girl  came  in. 

"Come  here,  Kioutchouk-Gul."  (The 
slaves  often  are  given  fancy  names  by  their 
mistresses.  This  one  meant  Little  Rose.) 

The  slave  came  and  made  herself  ever  so 
little  at  the  feet  of  her  beloved  mistress. 

"I  think  Allah  has  shown  me  a  way  out  of 
our  troubles."  She  took  the  girl's  hands  into 
hers.  "It  is  not  marriage  you  object  to  so 
much  as  leaving  me?" 

The  girl  nodded. 

"Then  how  would  you  like  to  marry  and 
still  live  with  me?  We  both  should  have  our 
way." 

In  a  second  the     irl  was  in  the  arms  of 


Aishe*  Hanoum,  calling  her  all  sorts  of  en- 
dearing names,  in  which  the  Oriental  lan- 
guage is  so  rich. 

Thus  the  incident  ended.  The  sight  of  the 
tremendous  love  she  had  inspired  in  her  slave 
gave  me  an  idea  of  the  beautiful  character 
A'ishe  Hanoum  must  have. 

"Aishd  Hanoum,"  I  said  when  we  were 
left  alone,  "you  promised  to  tell  me  all  about 
yourself.  Will  you  do  so  now?" 

"Yes,  yavroum;  but  will  you  tell  me  all 
about  yourself  and  your  life  in  America  after- 
wards ?  " 

I  promised. 

"I  was  born  in  Roumely,  where  my  father 
was  a  nomadic  chief,"  she  began. 

The  mere  word  Roumely  to  those  who  are 
born  in  the  East  is  full  of  suggestion  of  bal- 
lads of  valorous  deeds  and  supernatural  do- 
ings. Ai'she  Hanoum  became  to  my  mind  a 
more  romantic  figure  than  before. 

"I  remember  quite  well  the  way  we  lived. 
All  we  possessed  was  done  up  in  bundles,  for 
116 


we  moved  from  one  place  to  the  other  con- 
stantly. At  night,  if  it  was  rainy  or  cold,  the 
men  would  pitch  the  tents;  and  while  the  wo- 
men and  children  slept  inside,  the  men  would 
sleep  outside,  one  always  on  guard.  But  gen- 
erally we  all  slept  under  Allah's  own  eyes. 
Life  was  like  a  dream,  and  like  a  dream  it 
quickly  vanished.  My  father  died,  leaving 
my  mother  alone  to  care  for  six  little  hungry 
mouths.  We  left  the  mountains  and  walked 
for  days  to  reach  a  town.  When  there  my 
mother  took  to  doing  all  kinds  of  work  to 
support  us.  I  was  only  six  years  old.  All  I 
remember  of  that  time  is  like  another  dream, 
only  this  time  a  bad  one  and  it  lasted  longer, 
though,  as  days  and  nights  count,  not  as 
many  as  five  hundred  I  think.  My  mother's 
life  became  a  sad  one,  and  there  was  no  longer 
sunshine  and  music.  We  lived  in  a  little 
house  which  to  me  was  like  a  \vooden  box, 
and  soon  we  all  became  ill,  and  were  very 
miserable.  I  do  not  think  Allah  meant  his 
people  to  live  in  houses.  He  made  the  world 

117 


JJUU 


so  beautiful,  that  we  might  live  in  it  and  be 
happy.  To  this  minute  I  cannot  accustom 
myself  to  live  in  one  room.  That  is  why  I 
have  this  big  space." 

In  fact  she  had  taken  three  rooms,  sixteen 
by  twenty,  and  had  them  thrown  together, 
slender  columns  supporting  the  ceiling.  I 
was  wondering  what  she  would  say  if  she  saw 
a  few  of  New  York's  apartments,  where  even 
Allah's  sun  is  not  potent  enough  to  pierce 
high  wralls  and  enter. 

"One  day,  however,  my  mother  came  to 
us  with  joy  in  her  face  and  said  to  me :  '  My 
children,  your  father  must  be  having  in  his 
favor  the  ear  of  the  Prophet.  Here  comes  to 
us  a  miraculous  help.  A  rich  Hanoum  wishes 
to  buy  six  or  seven  little  girl  slaves.  I  am 
going  to  sell  you  three  little  girls,  and  with 
the  money  go  back  to  the  mountains  to  bring 
up  your  brothers  as  true  Roumeliotes,  not 
like  mice  in  a  city.' 

"We  were  very  happy.  I  did  not  know  at 
the  time  what  slavery  was;  but  my  mother 

118 


explained  it,  and  we  were  glad  of  the  chance 
given  to  us." 

I  must  explain  here  that  slavery  in  Turkey 
is  not  what  the  word  implies  in  Christendom. 
A  slave  in  Turkey  is  like  an  adopted  child, 
to  whom  is  given  every  advantage  according 
to  her  talents.  If  she  is  beautiful,  she  is 
brought  up  like  a  young  lady  and  is  given  as 
a  wife  to  a  noble  and  rich  man ;  if  she  is  plain 
and  clever,  she  becomes  a  teacher;  if  she  is 
plain  and  not  clever,  she  learns  to  do  the 
manual  work,  sewing  or  domestic  labor.  Ac- 
cording to  the  Koran,  a  slave  must  be  freed 
after  seven  years  of  servitude  and  be  given  a 
dowry  of  no  less  than  two  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars. 

Slaves  always  fare  better  than  if  they 
stayed  at  home.  Generally  they  are  drawn 
from  the  people  who  have  been  slaves  them- 
selves, or  from  orphans.  To  a  Turk  who  is 
poor,  selling  his  children  into  slavery  means 
giving  them  advantages  which  he  could  not 
possibly  give  them  himself. 

119 


"Were  you  sorry  to  leave  your  mother?" 
I  asked. 

"How  could  I  be  sorry,"  was  her  reply, 
"since  I  was  giving  her  back  to  her  moun- 
tains and  her  sunshine?  My  two  little  sisters 
and  myself  journeyed  for  days,  sometimes  on 
the  backs  of  animals,  and  sometimes  in  what 
seemed  to  me  then  wooden  boxes  on  wheels. 

"In  the  house  of  my  new  mistress  I  re- 
mained with  my  sisters  for  seven  years.  She 
was  lovely  to  us,  and  although  we  did  not 
live  out-of-doors  all  the  time,  we  lived  in  a 
large  house,  in  a  very  large  garden,  and  by 
the  water.  It  was  in  Smyrna.  We  had  never 
seen  anything  before  except  mountains  and 
trees.  When  we  came  to  Smyrna  we  were 
afraid  of  everything,  even  of  the  commonest 
things.  After  we  had  learned  that  all  the 
strange  things  would  not  hurt  us,  we  were 
taken  out  on  the  water  in  a  small  boat,  and 
after  a  time  we  were  taught  how  to  make  it 
go  ourselves.  We  also  learned  to  read  and 
write,  and  we  were  taught  French,  and  to 
1 20 


paint  and  play  the  guitar,  and  to  dance.  They 
were  not  as  strict  there  as  they  are  in  my 
household  here.  When  I  was  fourteen  I  was 
spoken  of  as  a  very  beautiful  person,  and  a 
Hanoum  who  came  to  see  me  once  said  I  was 
only  fit  for  the  Sultan.  My  beauty  travelled 
from  Smyrna  to  the  Palace,  and  some  one 
came  out  to  our  house  to  see  me.  That  is 
how  I  was  given  to  the  Sultan  on  his  anniver- 
sary." 

"Were  you  sorry  to  be  sent  to  the  Palace  ?  " 
I  asked. 

She  looked  at  me  as  if  I  had  asked  some- 
thing that  only  people  out  of  their  minds 
could  ask. 

"I  was  so  happy,"  said  she,  as  if  speaking 
to  herself,  "that  for  nights  I  could  not  go  to 
sleep.  At  last  the  day  came  when  I  was  to 
see  the  great  ruler  of  the  greatest  nation  of 
the  living  world."  She  crossed  her  hands  on 
her  lap  with  a  far-away  look  on  her  face,  as 
if  gazing  on  her  dead  youth  and  its  dreams. 

As   I    looked    at    her    I   was    wondering 

121 


whether  she  had  ever  had  any  happiness,  and 
unconsciously  I  found  myself  asking  her, 
"Were  you  happy  in  the  Palace?" 

My  question  brought  her  back  to  the  earth, 
and  she  laughed  her  gay  little  laugh,  and 
patted  my  hand. 

"You  dear  yavroum,  you  are  such  a  little 
baby,  why  should  I  not  be  happy?  To  me 
was  given  the  honor  of  being  sent  to  the  Calif, 
which  was  no  less  an  honor  to  my  new  mo- 
ther than  it  was  to  me." 

"Did  you  see  the  Sultan?"  I  asked, 

"  Y-e-s.  When  I  reached  the  Palace  I  was 
taken  to  my  rooms;  and  after  a  few  days, 
when  I  was  sufficiently  rested,  they  dressed 
me  ever  so  beautifully  for  the  Pattissah  to 
see  me." 

Again  that  far-away  look  came  into  her 
pretty  face,  but  she  went  on  with  her  story. 

"  It  was  in  a  large  living-room,  we  were  all 
assembled  —  such  beautiful  women  and  so 
many!  I  was  by  the  chair  of  the  Sultana 
when  he,  our  ruler,  came  in.  I  was  presented 

122 


to  him,  and  he  smiled  kindly  at  me,  and  said 
that  he  hoped  I  should  be  happy  in  the  Pal- 
ace. I  was  given  by  his  order  many  gems 
and  costly  robes  and  slaves  of  my  very  own, 
but  Allah  never  meant  for  me  the  honor  of 
wifehood  with  the  Master.  Kismet,  Ne 
apeym." 

"Oh!  Ai'she  Hanoum!"  I  cried  when  she 
stopped.  "Do  tell  me  more  of  palace  life." 

"No,  no,  yavroum,  you  cannot  know  that. 
It  is  not  spoken  out  of  the  Palace;  but  you 
may  see  the  little  girl  I  am  hoping  some  day 
to  send  there." 

I  gasped.  "You  don't  mean  to  say  that 
you  are  going  to  send  somebody  to  the  Pal- 
ace?" 

"Why,  you  dear  little  crest  of  the  waves, 
why  should  I  not,  when  I  find  a  little  girl  who 
I  think  is  going  to  be  most  gloriously  beauti- 
ful." 

She  clapped  her  hands  and  Kioutchouk- 
Gul  came  in  beaming  with  smiles.  Her  mis- 
tress returned  the  smiles  as  she  said :  - 

123 


"Bring  me  in  Gul-Allen"  (Rose  of  the 
World). 

A  few  minutes  later  a  little  girl  was  marched 
in.  She  was  tall  and  well  shaped,  and  carried 
her  head  magnificently.  She  was  four  years 
old,  but  looked  seven.  If  she  grows  up  to  be 
as  beautiful  as  she  looked  then,  she  will  make 
a  stunner.  The  curious  part  was  that  she 
looked  like  her  mistress.  Her  eyes  were  that 
almond  shape,  the  color,  as  Rossetti  expresses 
it,  like  the  sea  and  the  sky  mixed  together, 
only  in  theirs  the  landscape  was  mixed  in  too. 
Every  feature  in  her  face  seemed  to  have  been 
nature's  great  care.  The  color  of  her  skin 
was  clear  white,  and  you  could  see  the  veins 
as  if  they  were  finely  traced  with  a  blue  pen- 
cil, and  her  mouth  was  Cupid's  bow. 

"A'ishe  Hanoum,"  I  begged,  when  the  child 
left  us,  "please  don't  send  her  to  the  Palace. 
Suppose  she  never  becomes  his  wife.  She 
will  be  happier  with  a  young  man  for  a  hus- 
band." 

A'ishe  Hanoum  looked  puzzled  at  me. 
124 


"Suppose  you  had  a  great  talent,  and  your 
mother  never  gave  you  a  chance  with  it, 
would  you  think  her  just  ?  You  see,  yavroum, 
I  am  giving  you  an  example  from  your  own 
standards  to  judge.  Tell  me,  would  n't  you 
blame  her  all  your  life?" 

I  acquiesced. 

"It  would  be  the  same  with  my  little  Gul- 
Allen." 

"But  suppose  when  she  grows  up  she 
refuses  to  go,  like  the  other?" 

"Oh,  she  will  not;  for  she  will  be  brought 
up  with  this  idea  in  mind.  Her  education  is 
to  be  very  careful.  Besides,  in  the  heart  of 
every  Mussulman  woman,  the  highest  honor 
on  this  side  of  the  earth  is  to  give  a  son  to  the 
Pattissah.  You  have  to  be  a  Turkish  woman 
to  understand  this.  And  now  you  must  see 
my  palace  robes  and  my  gems." 

Kioutchouk-Gul  received  her  orders,  and 
in  a  few  minutes  she  came  in,  carrying  on  her 
head  a  bundle  two  feet  thick  and  four  long, 
and  in  that  space  carefully  folded  were  twenty 

125 


most  gorgeous  garments !   Think  of  the  space 
twenty  of  our  stupid  gowns  would  require ! 

Kioutchouk-Gul  opened  the  Persian  shawl, 
and  as  she  unfolded  each  garment  she  pa- 
raded it  on  her  slim  shoulders.  In  my  child- 
hood I  was  put  to  sleep  with  Oriental  tales, 
where  the  princesses  wore  magnificent  clothes 
that  only  a  fairy  queen's  wand  could  produce. 
Those  garments  belonged  to  that  category. 
Bright  silks  represented  sky  and  stars  worked 
with  silver  and  gold  and  fastened  with  pre- 
cious stones.  There  was  one  of  dark  red  on 
which  were  embroidered  with  silver  thread 
white  chrysanthemums,  and  the  heart  of  each 
flower  on  the  front  border  was  a  topaz ! 

Think  of  having  all  these  clothes  and  the 
jewelry  to  go  with  them  because  the  Sultan 
cast  his  eyes  five  minutes  on  you.  No  wonder 
that  in  the  heart  of  every  Mussulman  woman 
the  desire  to  go  to  the  Palace  is  so  great. 
Though  it  is  religion  that  prompts  them, 
where  is  the  truly  feminine  heart  that  i.s  in- 
different to  beautiful  garments? 
126 


From  A'ishe  Hanoum  I  went  to  my  room 
rather  bewildered.  Orientalism  was  like  a 
labyrinth:  the  more  I  advanced  in  it,  the 
more  entangled  I  became.  One  woman  after 
another  was  confronting  me  with  a  new  pro- 
blem, a  new  phase  of  life;  and  I  felt  stupid 
and  incapable  of  understanding  them.  It 
hurt  my  vanity,  too,  to  find  how  small  I  was 
in  comparison  with  them.  I  should  have  liked 
really  to  sell  myself  to  them  for  a  year,  merely 
to  be  able  to  live  with  them  continuously,  to 
try  to  understand  a  little  more  of  their  lives. 
They  interested  and  charmed  me :  they  were 
so  much  worth  understanding.  There  was  so 
much  of  the  sublime  in  them,  which  is  lack- 
ing in  our  European  civilization.  I  felt  petty 
and  trivial  every  time  I  found  myself  facing 
one  of  those  conditions  which  they  under- 
stood so  well.  It  is  true  that  in  Europe  and 
America  there  are,  and  have  been,  women 
who  sacrifice  their  lives  for  big  causes.  But 
as  a  rule  it  is  a  cause  to  which  glory  is  at- 
tached, or  else  some  tremendous  thing  they 

127 


half  understand,  and  to  which  they  give 
themselves  blindly  because  of  its  appeal  to 
that  sentimentality  which  is  so  colossal  in 
European  women.  With  these  Turkish  wo- 
men the  sacrifices  came  in  the  small  things 
of  daily  life,  things  for  which  they  received 
no  thanks,  for  which  their  names  did  not 
become  immortal.  And  through  their  self- 
abnegation  they  were  reaching  heights  un- 
known to  us  of  the  wrestern  world.  I  do  not 
mean  to  say  that  our  women  do  not  sacrifice 
themselves  in  every-day  life.  They  do ;  but  it 
is  not  with  the  sublimity  of  soul  with  which 
these  supposed  soulless  women  do. 


VI 


HOULME    HANOUM,    THE    DISCON- 
TENTED 

WHILE  I  was  visiting  Selim  Pasha's  house- 
hold, Djimlah's  youngest  half-sister,  Houlme", 
was  there,  too.  She  had  been  brought  up  by 
her  maternal  grandfather  far  away  from 
Constantinople,  somewhere  in  Asia  Minor, 
and  I  had  never  seen  her  until  the  present 
visit.  She  was  very  friendly  to  me  from  a  dis- 
tance, like  a  timid  wood-goddess,  who  dared 
not  approach.  Now  and  then  she  would  smile 
at  me,  and  her  large  eyes  seemed  full  of  ques- 
tioning. She  did  not  look  modern,  and  did 
not  move  like  ordinary  women.  I  always 
thought  of  her  as  Antigone. 

One  evening,  unexpectedly,  she  came  to 
my  room,  looking  like  a  vestal,  and  carrying 
a  basket  full  of  flower-petals.  She  asked  if  she 
might  give  me  my  flower-bath.  This  was  a 

129 


great  honor  to  a  mortal  like  me,  for  her 
grandmother  had  been  a  sister  of  the  Sultan. 
I  anticipated  that  now,  at  last,  she  would  talk 
to  me;  but  she  gave  me  my  bath  almost  with- 
out a  word.  Then,  when  she  asked  permis- 
sion to  spend  the  night  with  me,  and  after  the 
slaves  had  made  her  bed  at  the  foot  of  mine, 
I  again  expected  some  conversation  from  her : 
again  young  Houlmd  crept  into  her  little  bed, 
stretched  her  arms  out,  palms  upward,  and 
prayed  that  Allah,  the  only  true  God,  should 
guard  the  living  and  help  the  dead,  and 
quietly  laid  herself  down  to  sleep. 

For  more  than  an  hour  I  lay  in  bed,  and 
sleep  would  not  come.  I  wondered  whether 
the  young  Turkish  girl  was  asleep,  and  fell 
to  thinking  about  her.  My  thoughts  on 
Houlme  were  interrupted  pleasantly  by  a 
nightingale.  I  have  heard  nightingales  all 
over  Europe,  but  they  do  not  sing  as  they 
do  in  the  East.  The  reason  perhaps  is  be- 
cause all  over  the  world  they  are  mere  birds, 
while  in  the  East  they  are  the  mythical  Bul- 

130 


JJUU 


Buls,  the  souls  starved  for  love.  It  is  be- 
lieved that  once  a  Bui- Bui  loved  a  rose,  and 
the  rose  aroused  by  the  song  woke  trembling 
on  her  stem.  It  was  a  white  rose,  as  all  roses 
at  the  time  were  —  white,  innocent,  and  vir- 
ginal. It  listened  to  the  song,  and  something 
in  its  rose  heart  stirred.  Then  the  Bul-Bul 
came  ever  so  near  the  trembling  rose  and 
whispered  words  which  the  rose  could  not 
help  hearing.  "Ben  severim  sana  Gul-Gul." 
At  those  words  of  love  the  little  heart  of  the 
rose  blushed,  and  in  that  instant  pink  roses 
were  created.  The  Bul-Bul  came  nearer  and 
nearer,  and  though  Allah,  when  he  created 
the  world,  meant  that  the  rose  alone  should 
never  know  earthly  love,  it  opened  its  petals 
and  the  Bul-Bul  stole  its  virginity.  In  the 
morning  the  rose  in  its  shame  turned  red, 
giving  birth  to  red  roses;  and  although  ever 
since  then  the  nightingale  comes  nightly  to 
ask  of  the  divine  love,  the  rose  refuses;  for 
Allah  never  meant  rose  and  bird  to  mate. 
Thus,  although  the  rose  trembles  at  the 


voice  of  the  nightingale,  its  petals  remain 
closed. 

That  night  the  memory  of  this  story  was 
particularly  dear  to  me,  because  it  brought 
back  to  me  my  childhood  dreams.  In  order 
to  enjoy  better  the  nightingale  I  sat  up.  The 
little  platform  on  which  my  bed  was  made 
creaked,  and  Houlme  spoke. 

"Are  you  awake,  too,  young  Hanoum?" 

"I  have  been  unable  to  sleep,"  I  said. 

"I  have  not  been  asleep  either.  There  is 
no  sleep  to-night  for  mortals." 

She  got  out  of  bed,  went  to  a  closet,  and 
brought  out  two  white  silk  burnooses. 

"Come,  young  Hanoum,"  she  said.  "  Come, 
let  us  no  longer  stay  in  our  beds." 

I  threw  over  my  shoulders  the  soft  garment. 
Houlm£  put  hers  on.  She  took  my  hand, 
and  we  went  out  on  the  little  balcony. 

It  was  one  of  those  wonderful  Oriental 
nights,  when  the  beauty  of  nature  is  intox- 
icating, maddening.  The  sky  was  indigo- 
blue  without  the  shadow  of  a  cloud ;  the  stars 
132 


were  brilliantly  lighting  the  hills  and  the 
garden,  and  a  half-grown  moon  was  travel- 
ling fast  toward  the  Bosphorus.  Except  for 
the  singing  of  the  nightingale  all  was  still. 

"That  is  why  we  cannot  sleep."  It  was 
Houlme'  speaking.  "There  is  too  much  love 
on  the  earth  to-night;  and  we  being  of  the 
earth  cry  for  our  own.  My  poor  heart  has 
travelled  over  endless  seas  and  is  with  him 
now,  and  my  young  life  is  crying  for  him." 

It  was  a  strange  night,  and  that  Mahom- 
etan girl  standing  next  to  me  in  her  glori- 
ous beauty,  and  talking  a  language  mysteri- 
ous as  the  East,  captivated  my  imagination. 
As  I  looked  at  her,  at  her  large  black  eyes 
and  arched  eyebrows,  her  ivory  complexion 
and  her  lovely  mouth,  I  felt  that  she  could 
do  things  that  an  ordinary  woman  could  not. 
And  the  night  had  loosened  her  tongue,  as 
it  had  the  nightingale's. 

"I  sometimes  think,"  she  went  on,  "that 
it  is  wrong  for  women  to  think  and  to  know 
much,  for  they  kill  nature  with  their  thoughts. 

133 


Men,  great  men,  never  think  when  it  comes 
to  love ;  they  only  love  and  taste  life.  It  is  as 
it  should  be,  as  Allah  meant  life  and  love  to 
be.  What  has  our  poor  woman's  mind  to  do 
with  the  workings  of  the  universe?  If  it 
were  not  for  my  foolish  thinking,  I  should 
not  be  craving  love  now  like  the  Bul-Bul." 

Turkish  women  in  some  ways  are  very 
different  from  the  women  of  other  races. 
They  may  be  more  educated  than  our  col- 
lege girls,  they  may  speak  four  or  five  lan- 
guages, and  read  the  masterpieces  of  each  of 
these  languages,  but  they  remain  children  of 
nature,  as  we  do  not.  If  you  spend  a  day 
with  them  and  they  love  you,  you  will  know 
their  hearts  and  minds  as  they  truly  are. 
There  is  no  false  shame  or  prudery  about 
them.  They  speak  as  they  think  and  feel. 

Houlme  apparently  felt  very  much  that 
lovely  midsummer  night,  and  her  heart  was 
breaking  for  something  I  could  not  well 
make  out.  She  drew  me  to  her  and  kissed  me. 

"Glorious  one,  do  you  sutler  as  I  do?" 
134 


"I  don't  know  how  you  suffer,"  I  answered. 

She  clasped  her  hands  to  her  bosom.  "  Oh ! 
I  suffer  as  if  my  poor  heart  were  on  fire. 
It  is  crying  out  for  that  other  heart  which, 
but  for  my  foolishness,  would  be  near  me 
now." 

I  did  not  care  to  ask  anything  for  fear  of 
stopping  her  half-confession. 

"Houlme,"  I  said  instead,  "  you  are  very 
beautiful.  I  would  give  anything  to  be  as 
beautiful  as  you  are." 

"Why  should  you  like  to  have  my  beauty, 
beloved  Hanoum?  You  said  you  did  not 
wish  to  be  married ;  beauty  is  only  good  to  a 
woman  to  give  to  the  man  she  loves;  you 
ought  not  to  have  any,  and  Allah  ought  to 
have  made  you  black." 

I  shuddered.  On  a  night  like  this,  every- 
thing seemed  possible,  and  I  looked  around 
for  the  wicked  ev-sahib  who  might  change 
my  color. 

"Foreign  Hanoum,"  said  Houlme,  "tell 
rne  a  little  about  the  women  of  England. 

135 


Are  they  so  beautiful  that  they  can  make 
men  forget  their  vows  to  other  women?" 

"Some  of  them  are  very  handsome,"  I 
answered,  "but  not  as  beautiful  as  you 
women  of  the  East.  To  my  mind  you  are  the 
only  kind  of  women  that  could  make  men 
forget  their  vows,  and  Mahomet  knew  what 
he  was  about  when  he  made  his  laws." 

"You  are  not  right  about  our  Prophet,  be- 
loved Hanoum,  for  he  never  meant  women 
to  be  kept  apart  from  men;  but  what  you  say 
gladdens  my  poor  heart  —  or  are  you  speak- 
ing thus  because  you  have  divined  my  sorrow 
and  wish  to  comfort  me?" 

"I  know  nothing  about  you,  Houlme,  ex- 
cept what  little  you  have  told  me  to-night." 

"Oh!  glorious  Hanoum,  sometimes  I 
should  like  to  feel  as  you  women  of  other 
lands  feel,  though  I  know  it  to  be  wicked  to 
wish  to  be  different  from  what  the  great 
Allah  made  me.  But  I  am  sorry  I  have  been 
brought  up  as  a  woman  of  the  West.'' 

"  But  you  are  not,"  I  said.  "  You  arc  less  of 
136 


the  West  than  any  Mussulman  girl  I  have  met. 
What  makes  you  think  that  you  are  like  us?" 
"Because,  young  Hanoum,  I  was  brought 
up  by  foreigners.  I  speak  English,  French, 
and  German  as  well  as  I  do  my  own  lan- 
guage, and  I  know  more  of  your  literatures 
than  I  know  of  our  own.  The  thoughts  of 
your  great  writers  have  made  a  great  change 
in  my  poor  Eastern  thoughts.  You  see, 
young  Hanoum,  I  was  brought  up  by  my  ma- 
ternal grandfather,  who  is  a  Turk  of  the  new 
school,  which  believes  that  women  ought  to 
be  educated  to  be  the  companions  of  men. 
He  brought  me  up  with  my  cousin  Murat, 
to  whom  I  was  betrothed  as  soon  as  I  was 
born.  He  is  only  four  years  older  than  my- 
self, but  I  shared  his  studies  and  his  games 
till  I  reached  womanhood  and  had  to  take 
tcharchaf.  I  was  then  fourteen.  Of  course 
from  that  moment  I  did  not  see  my  cousin, 
as  I  was  living  in  the  haremlik  and  he  in  the 
selamlik.  When  I  was  eighteen  my  respect- 
able randfather  called  me  to  him  and  said 


that  the  time  had  come  for  me  to  be  the  wife 
of  Murat  Bey.  As  I  said  before,  my  grand- 
father is  of  the  new  school  and  does  not  be- 
lieve in  forcing  marriage  upon  women.  He 
asked  me  if  I  were  ready  ?  I  was  ready  —  not 
to  marry,  but  to  ask  a  favor. 

"  I  must  tell  you,  young  Hanoum,  that  from 
the  day  I  took  myself  to  the  haremlik  to  be  a 
woman  and  not  a  child,  I  gave  my  limited 
mind  to  the  studies  of  your  great  writers. 
From  them  I  understood  that  there  was  a 
greater  love  than  the  love  based  on  affection, 
and  I  wanted  to  make  sure  that  Murat  pre- 
ferred me  to  other  women.  Tasked,  therefore, 
my  learned  grandfather  to  send  Murat  for 
three  years  out  in  the  world,  in  the  different 
capitals  of  Europe,  in  some  diplomatic  post. 
If  at  the  end  of  the  three  years  Murat  loved 
me  still,  and  thought  me  worthy  to  be  his 
wife,  I  would  marry  him.  He  has  been  for 
a  year  in  Vienna,  then  for  a  year  in  Paris, 
and  now  he  is  in  England.  As  was  my 
wish  then,  Murat  never  writes  me  —  but  he 
138 


sends  me  books  and  presents  all  the  time. 
Since  he  has  gone  I  take  one  daily  paper 
from  Paris,  Vienna,  Berlin,  and  London.  I 
also  take  several  monthly  periodicals,  so  that 
my  mind  may  be  ready  for  my  cousin  when 
he  comes  back  to  me.  From  what  I  read  in 
your  papers,  I  do  not  like  your  world,  and 
I  am  glad  that  I  am  a  Mahometan  girl. 
But  I  know  also  this,  that  it  is  wrong,  wrong 
for  women  to  think." 

"It  is  a  dangerous  experiment,"  I  said, 
"not  for  women  to  think,  but  to  do  what  you 
have  done.  You  sent  the  man  you  love  away 
before  he  really  knew  you.  If  he  had  seen 
you  as  a  woman,  I  doubt  whether  all  the 
beauties  of  Europe  could  make  him  forget 
you.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  hardly  fair  to 
expect  a  youth  to  remember  a  child  of  four- 
teen. Why  don't  you  write  to  each  other,  in 
order  that  at  least  he  may  know  your  mind  ?  " 

"  Because  I  do  not  wish  him  to  be  reminded 
:>f  me  except  by  his  own  heart." 

"Houlme,"  I  said,  "are  you  not  rather 

139 


romantic  ?  What  in  the  name  of  all  flowers 
made  you  do  such  idiotic  things?" 

"You  don't  understand  me  very  much, 
young  Hanoum;  that  is  why  you  think  me 
romantic.  The  day  before  I  took  tcharchaf, 
Murat  Bey  took  me  to  his  father's  grave  and 
there  he  promised  me  to  remain  faithful  to 
me  all  his  life  after  he  became  my  husband. 
He  vowed  that  I  shall  remain  his  only  wife, 
unless  Allah  did  not  send  us  boys.  He  gave 
me  then  a  dagger  with  a  poisoned  blade  and 
asked  me  to  stab  his  heart  if  he  ever  was 
untrue  to  me  after  our  marriage.  As  I  grew 
older,  and  read  much  about  life,  I  knew  that 
it  was  unfair  to  Murat  Bey  to  tie  him  down 
to  such  a  great  promise,  unless  I  gave  him  a 
chance  to  see  the  world  and  many  women." 
"  Does  he  know  why  he  was  sent  abroad  ?  " 
"Oh,  yes!  I  wrote  him  a  long  letter  and 
explained  to  him  my  thoughts.  At  first  he 
did  not  like  the  idea,  for  he  said  he  knew 
that  he  loved  me  and  wanted  to  be  married 
to  me,  but  at  last  he  consented." 
140 


"  Suppose  that  he  falls  in  love  with  another 
woman  and  marries  her,  what  will  you  do?" 

"  I  shall  use  the  dagger  for  my  own  heart," 
she  said  simply. 

To  think  that  she  would  kill  herself  for  an 
idea !  For  Murat  could  be  no  more  than  an 
idea  to  her,  she  never  really  having  known 
him  as  a  man.  I  looked  at  her  and  wondered 
what  things  she  might  be  capable  of  doing 
when  she  should  love  a  real  man. 

"Houlme,"  I  asked,  "suppose  your  cousin 
came  back  and  you  married  him,  and  after 
a  few  years  of  marriage  he  wanted  another 
wife,  as  so  many  good  Moslems  do;  would 
you  use  your  dagger?" 

Her  beautiful  black  eyes  were  wonderful 
on  that  glorious  Oriental  night;  they  looked 
like  big  stars,  and  as  they  met  mine  I  had  no 
need  of  an  answer. 

At  that  moment  a  light  breeze  from  the  sea 
passed,  and  in  the  stillness  of  the  night  we 
heard  the  moving  of  the  leaves  and  flowers. 

"They  are  awakening,"  said  Houlme. 

141 


JJUU. 


"The  nightingale  has  reached  their  hearts. 
You  can  hear  the  rose  tremble  on  its  stem." 

With  the  Eastern  legend  behind  the  notes 
I  could  fancy  the  Bul-Bul  implore  the  awak- 
ening rose  for  a  love  that  was  never  to  be 
granted. 

Houlme  was  listening  with  all  her  heart  in 
her  eyes.  One  would  say  in  watching  her 
that  she  understood  every  syllable  the  lover 
bird  sang.  The  song  of  the  nightingale  rose 
to  a  transcendent  pathos  and  then  abruptly 
stopped. 

"Poor  little  feathered  lover,"  the  young 
Turkish  girl  murmured,  "you  have  been  de- 
nied a  little  love  which  would  make  your 
singing  immortal,  and  we  shall  hear  you  no 
more." 

Houlm^  made  allusion  to  the  Oriental 
belief  that  on  some  such  night  as  this  the 
nightingale's  song,  at  its  tenderest,  most  pas- 
sionate note,  does  reach  the  heart  of  the  rose, 
and  that  if  then  the  rose  still  denies  him,  he 
dies.  As  the  little  body  is  never  found,  it  is 
142 


believed  that  the  other,  silent  nightingales 
make  his  grave  at  the  foot  of  the  rose-bush. 
Whether  this  thought  brought  graves  to 
the  mind  of  my  companion  I  don't  know, 
but  of  a  sudden  she  was  on  her  feet  and  an- 
nounced to  me  that  she  was  going  to  the  little 
cemetery  to  pray.  There  was  no  use  arguing 
with  her,  as  I  saw  her  mind  was  made  up; 
and  in  a  few  minutes,  like  two  white  phan- 
toms, we  were  in  the  garden,  where  Houlm^ 
filled  her  arms  with  roses.  Then  she  opened 
a  gate,  ever  so  little,  made  in  the  thick  wall, 
and  we  were  out  in  the  open  fields.  She 
walked  along  majestically,  without  the  slight- 
est misgiving  of  her  misconduct,  and  in  a 
short  while  we  were  in  the  little  cemetery. 
Once  there,  she  walked  directly  to  one  grave, 
covered  it  with  her  flowers,  threw  herself  on 
it  and  prayed.  To  me,  crouching  under  the 
cemetery  wall  and  imagining  each  tombstone 
either  a  phantom  or,  worse  yet,  a  human 
form  advancing  toward  us,  it  seemed  as  if  she 
prayed  an  eternity.  At  last  she  got  up,  turned 

143 


her  tear-stained  face  to  me,  and  asked  me  to 
give  a  prayer  for  an  unhappy  woman. 

On  our  way  home  I  asked  her  if  she  knew 
whose  grave  it  was.  Not  till  we  found  our- 
selves again  on  our  balcony  did  she  speak. 

"That  grave,  dear  blossom,  is  Chakende* 
Hanoum's,"  she  said. 

"Who  was  Chakende  Hanoum?"  I  asked. 
Houlme  looked  at  me  incredulously. 

"You  have  been  here  so  many  days  and 
no  one  has  told  you  Chakende  Hanoum's 
story?" 

"No  one,"  I  answered,  "and  I  am  glad, 
for  I  would  rather  that  you  tell  me  her  story 
since  you  love  her  grave  so." 

The  light  sea-breeze  became  more  auda- 
cious every  moment,  and  brought  to  our  bal- 
cony the  perfumes  of  the  thousands  of  flowers 
growing  beneath  us,  as  Houlme  began. 

"Chakende  Hanoum  was  the  daughter  of 

Nazim   Pasha.    She   was    educated    in    the 

Western  fashion.  She  was  as  beautiful  as  an 

houri  and  as  good  as  Allah's  own  heart.   She 

144 


was  given  as  a  wife  to  Djamal  Pasha,  a  young 
and  dashing  courtier.  They  were  very  much 
in  love  with  each  other,  and  he  promised  her 
that  she  should  remain  his  first  and  only  wife. 
Their  marital  life  was  blessed  with  two  boys 
and  one  girl.  Chakende  grew  more  beautiful 
as  happiness  became  her  daily  portion. 

"One  day,  when  she  was  returning  with 
her  retinue  from  a  visit  she  had  made  in 
Stamboul,  on  the  bridge  of  Galata  and  in  a 
closed  carriage,  she  saw  her  husband  in  com- 
pany with  a  foreign  woman.  That  night 
when  he  came  home,  she  questioned  him, 
and  he  only  answered  that  the  lady  was  a  for- 
eigner. Chakende  Hanoum  understood  that 
her  husband  did  not  wish  to  be  asked  any 
more  questions.  Early  in  the  morning,  how- 
ever, she  sent  for  her  brother,  and  from  him 
she  learned  what  was  generally  known. 

"She  took  a  few  of  her  slaves  and  went 
to  her  country  place.  She  stayed  there  for 
several  days,  giving  the  si'tuation  her  whole 
thought;  then  she  came  back  to  her  husband. 

145 


She  told  him  that  she  knew  the  truth,  that  she 
had  thought  the  matter  over,  and  had  decided 
to  give  him  back  his  word,  as  to  her  remain- 
ing his  only  wife.  Thus  he  could  marry  the 
foreign  lady.  It  was  then  that  Djamal  Pasha 
turned  her  from  Allah.  He  laughed  at  her, 
and  said  that  Mademoiselle  Roboul  of  the 
French  theatrical  company  was  the  kind  of  a 
woman  that  men  loved  but  did  not  marry. 
Chakende  Hanoum  said  nothing,  but  that 
very  same  day  went  into  her  garden  and 
plucked  roses  from  a  laurel  tree.  You  know, 
young  Hanoum,  what  you  can  do  with  those 
roses  ?  " 

A  shiver  ran  down  my  back  as  I  nodded. 

"A  few  nights  later,  when  Djamal  Pasha 
was  about  to  retire,  Chakende  Hanoum 
prepared  his  sherbet  for  him.  Her  hand  did 
not  tremble,  though  her  face  was  white  as 
she  handed  it  to  him.  It  did  not  last  long; 
Djamal  Pasha  died  from  an  unexplained 
malady;  but  Chakende  Hanoum  kept  on 
plucking  laurel  roses  daily.  After  a  little 
146 


while  they  put  her  in  her  little  grave,  too,  five 
years  ago." 

We  sat  silent  for  a  while.  The  moon  had 
travelled  fast  and  was  now  near  the  water, 
bridging  the  Bosphorus  with  her  moonglade. 
The  garden,  the  hills,  and  the  water  changed 
with  the  changing  slant  of  the  rays,  and  be- 
came more  wondrously  enchanting  still, 
though  that  had  not  seemed  possible  before, 
and  enthralled  me  with  the  fascination  of  the 
East  —  the  East  whose  language  and  ways 
of  dealing  with  right  and  wrong  had  been 
alien  to  me  for  six  years. 

"It  is  wrong  for  women  to  think  —  it  is 
wrong,  at  least,  for  us  women  of  the  East." 
It  was  Houlme  Hanoum  who  spoke  again. 
"They  educate  us  and  let  us  learn  to  think 
as  you  women  of  the  West  think,  but  the 
course  of  our  lives  is  to  be  so  different.  Since 
they  let  us  share  your  studies  they  ought  to 
let  us  lead  your  lives,  and  if  this  cannot  be 
done,  then  they  ought  not  to  let  us  study  and 
know  other  ways  but  our  own.  If  Chakend6 

147 


Hanoum  were  an  Eastern  woman  in  her 
thoughts  as  she  was  in  her  heart,  she  would 
have  been  with  us  now  a  happy  woman,  mak- 
ing her  motherless  children  happy,  too." 

"Houlme,"  I  said,  "for  some  of  you,  Oc 
cidental  education  is  like  strong  wine  to  un- 
accustomed people.  It  simply  goes  to  your 
heads.  Look  at  Djimlah,  your  sister;  she  cer- 
tainly is  as  educated  as  you  are,  but  she  could 
never  behave  the  way  you  or  Chakende 
Hanoum  did. 

"True,"  Houlme  assented.  "My  sister  is 
educated  as  far  as  speaking  European  lan- 
guages goes,  but  she  has  never  been  touched 
by  Occidental  thought.  To  her,  her  husband 
is  her  lord,  the  giver  of  her  children.  To  me, 
and  to  those  who  think  as  I  do,  a  man  must 
be  more.  He  must  be  to  his  wife  what  she  is 
to  him,  all  in  all.  Is  not  this  what  the  Occi- 
dental love  is?  I  did  not  use  to  think  this 
way  till  I  read  your  books.  I  wish  I  had 
never,  never  known.  I  do  not  like  to  hurt  the 
feelings  of  my  venerable  grandfather,  for  I 
148 


am  the  only  child  of  his  only  daughter,  as 
Murat  is  the  only  child  of  his  only  son,  and  I 
know  that  he  did  by  me  what  he  thought  best. 
Sometimes,  however,  I  should  like  him  to 
know  that  with  his  new  ideas  he  has  made  me 
miserable  by  allowing  me  to  acquire  thoughts 
not  in  accordance  with  our  mode  of  living." 

"Houlme,  if  your  cousin  came  back,  and 
you  became  his  wife  and  had  any  daughters, 
how  would  you  bring  them  up?" 

"I  have  thought  of  this  very  much  indeed," 
was  her  answer,  "and  I  should  like  to  talk  it 
over  with  Murat  when  he  becomes  my  hus- 
band. I  do  not  think  Turkish  parents  have 
any  right  to  experiment  with  their  children. 
I  should  not  like  to  give  to  my  daughters  this 
burden  of  unrest.  I  should  like  to  bring  them 
up  as  true  Osmanli  women." 

"Then  you  disapprove  of  the  modern  sys- 
tem of  education  that  is  creeping  into  the 
harems  ?  Were  you  to  be  free  to  see  men  and 
choose  your  husbands,  would  you  still  disap- 
prove?" 

149 


"Yes.  It  took  you  many  generations  to 
come  to  where  you  are.  Back  of  you  there 
are  hundreds  of  grandmothers  who  led  your 
life  and  worked  for  what  you  have  to-day. 
With  us  it  is  different:  we  shall  be  the  first 
grandmothers  of  the  new  thought,  and  we 
ought  to  have  it  come  to  us  slowly  and 
through  our  own  efforts.  Mussulman  women, 
with  the  help  of  Mahomet,  ought  to  work  out 
their  own  salvation,  and  borrow  nothing  from 
the  West.  We  are  a  race  apart,  with  different 
traditions  and  associations." 

"Is  this  the  thought  of  the  educated  wo- 
men of  the  harems  to-day?"  I  asked. 

Houlme's  face  saddened  as  she  said:  — 

"No,  young  Hanoum,  I  am  alone  in  this 
thought  as  far  as  I  can  make  out.  The  others 
say  that  we  must  immediately  be  given  free- 
dom and  liberty  to  do  as  we  like  with  our- 
selves. Indeed,  they  look  upon  me  with  mis- 
trust as  if  I  were  a  traitor." 

"  Have  they  any  definite  plans  of  what  they 
want  to  do?" 
150 


"I  doubt  whether  you  would  call  them 
definite  plans,  but  I  should  like  very  much  to 
have  you  come  with  me  to  our  next  meeting, 
which  will  be  in  two  days.  There  are  forty 
of  them  now  and  I  think  that  they  will  do 
more  harm  than  good,  as  they  are  going  about 
it  in  a  very  irrational  way.  Their  motto  is, 
'Do\vn  with  the  Old  Ideas.'  Naturally  they 
refuse  to  obey  their  parents  and  their  hus- 
bands." 

"How  old  are  they,  on  the  average?" 

"  The  youngest  of  them  all  is  seventeen  and 
the  oldest  forty.  They  are  all  unmarried, 
with  the  exception  of  five  who  have  left  their 
husbands." 

''You  are  not  in  sympathy  with  their  move- 
ment though  you  belong  to  it?" 

"No,  young  Hanoum,  for  I  am  afraid  that 
it  is  more  romanticism  that  guides  them  than 
thought  for  our  beloved  country.  I  call  them 
to  myself,  'Les  Romanesques  des  Harems/ 
though  they  call  themselves  'Les  Louises 
Michel.' " 


"Goodness  gracious!"  I  exclaimed, 
"Louise  Michel  was  an  anarchist!" 

"  So  are  they,"  said  Houlme";  "and  because 
I  tell  them  that  through  anarchy  we  can  do 
nothing,  they  will  not  hear  me." 

I  told  her  that  I  should  certainly  be  glad  to 
go  with  her  to  the  meeting  of  the  reformers, 
and  she  promised  to  take  me  soon. 

We  did  not  go  inside  the  house  that  night. 
Bringing  some  pillows  and  rugs  out  on  the 
balcony,  we  slept  there  until  the  morning 
light  drove  us  in. 


VII 
SUFFRAGETTES   OF  THE  HAREM 

ASLEEP,  I  gradually  became  conscious  of  a 
low  murmuring  song,  and  opened  my  eyes  to 
meet  those  of  my  little  slave  Kondje. 

"May  the  day  be  a  happy  one  to  you, 
glorious  Hanoum,"  she  said  when  her  eyes 
met  mine. 

"Is  it  late?"  I  asked. 

"The  magnificent  sun  has  been  at  his 
pleasure-giving  task  for  some  time  now.  My 
mistress's  sister  gave  me  orders  not  to  let  the 
daylight  make  you  heavy  with  sleep;  for  you 
are  going  out  with  her  before  the  heat  begins. 
That  is  why  I  have  been  coaxing  your  spirit 
back  to  your  body  with  my  song." 

"Did  you  have  to  coax  it  long?"  I  asked, 
smiling  at  the  Oriental  superstition  against 
awakening  any  one  suddenly.  They  believe 

153 


that  the  soul  leaves  the  body  during  sleep, 
and  wanders  in  other  lands. 

"Yes,  young  Hanoum.  It  must  have  gone 
far  away  from  here,  and  where  the  flowers 
blossom  their  prettiest;  for  a  pleasant  smile 
was  on  your  lips.  Now  your  body  and  spirit 
are  together  again,  and  here  is  your  coffee 
while  I  go  to  make  ready  your  bath." 

I  looked  at  my  watch.  It  was  a  quarter  to 
six.  In  harems  one  goes  to  bed  early  and 
wakes  up  early  again.  Perhaps  this  is  the 
secret  of  the  beauty  of  the  Eastern  women. 

As  I  was  sipping  my  coffee,  I  remembered 
that  to-day  I  was  to  go  with  Houlme  Hanoum 
to  the  meeting  of  advanced  Turkish  women. 

My  coffee  finished,  and  my  bath  and  my 
toilet,  I  went  to  the  window  to  look  at  the 
east  in  its  morning  glory.  A  heavy  rain  had 
fallen  in  the  night,  and  the  beflowered  na- 
ture that  met  my  eyes  was  a  very  clean  and 
fresh  one.  It  looked  like  a  Turkish  Hanoum 
coming  from  her  morning  bath.  And  this 
loveliness  alone  was  left  from  the  rain:  the 
154 


thirsty  earth  had  drunk  every  drop  of  the 
water. 

As  I  looked  through  the  latticed  window, 
my  eyes  roamed  first  down  to  the  gay  Bos- 
phorus  plashing  at  the  feet  of  the  fairylike 
dwellings  along  its  banks;  then  to  the  co- 
quettish hills  bathed  in  the  morning  glow. 
From  the  farther  view  my  glance  came  back 
to  our  garden,  to  be  surprised  by  the  sight  of 
two  young  Turks  walking  about  among  the 
flowers,  in  that  portion  allotted  to  the  men. 
Then  I  remembered  that  Selim  Pasha  had 
brought  a  number  of  guests  with  him  the 
night  before.  As  I  was  looking  at  the  two 
Turks  my  surprise  became  delight  on  recog- 
nizing in  one  of  them  a  friend  of  my  child- 
hood, of  whom  I  had  been  very  fond. 

I  clapped  my  hands,  and  Kondje  came 
running  in. 

"Please  go  down  and  see  if  the  Valide 
Hanoum  is  up  yet,"  I  said;  "and  if  she  is,  ask 
her  if  she  could  receive  me." 

In  a  few  minutes  the  slave  returned  to  tell 

155 


me  that  the  Valide"  was  about  to  partake  of 
her  morning  meal,  and  would  consider  it  an 
honor  if  I  would  join  her. 

I  rushed  down  to  her.  "  Good-morning  to 
you,  Valide  Hanoum,"  I  cried,  and  plunged 
at  once  into  the  reason  for  my  visit,  without 
those  flattering  and  ceremonious  approaches 
that  would  have  been  fitting.  "You  need  not 
grant  me  what  I  am  going  to  ask  of  you,  but  I 
should  like  you  very  much  to  grant  it." 

"  Good-morning  to  you,  first  rose  of  a 
young  rosebush,"  she  answered,  unvexed  by 
my  lack  of  politeness.  "And  I  shall  grant 
you  what  you  wish,  provided  that  it  comes 
under  my  jurisdiction.  If  it  does  not  we  shall 
have  to  apply  to  our  just  master,  Selim 
Pasha,  who  is  again  back  among  us." 

I  pointed  out  of  the  window  at  the  young 
men  walking  in  the  garden.  "I  want  to  go 
and  speak  to  them,"  I  said. 

"  What  ?  "  She  threw  back  her  lovely  head 
and  laughed  her  fresh,  happy  laugh. 

"You  dear,  dear  yavroum!    You  are  al- 

156 


ready  tired  of  us  women-folk,  and  want  to  go 
and  talk  with  the  men." 

"Not  a  bit,"  I  protested.  "I  would  gladly 
give  up  the  society  of  ten  men  for  yours, 
Valide  Hanoum;  but  one  of  those  young  fel- 
lows is  Halil  Bey,  with  whom  I  used  to  play 
when  I  was  a  child.  Do,  please,  say  that  I 
may  go  and  speak  to  him!" 

"Nay,  nay,  little  pearl,  you  must  not  speak 
to  him.  He  is  to  be  married  in  two  weeks, 
and  I  cannot  allow  any  temptation  in  his 
way.  I  might  change  my  mind,  however, 
after  we  have  partaken  of  some  nourishment. 
You  knowr,  yavroum,  a  hungry  person  sees 
the  world  all  awry." 

As  she  spoke  the  slaves  were  bringing  in 
freshly  picked  fruit  from  the  orchard,  on 
brass  trays  on  their  heads.  A  small  slave  also 
carried  a  basket  charmingly  arranged  with 
vine  leaves  and  grapes  from  the  house  vine- 
yards —  and  nowhere  on  earth  do  grapes 
taste  as  good  as  those  of  Constantinople. 

All  the  different  fruits  were  arranged  on 

157 


their  own  leaves  on  low  tables  inlaid  with 
mother-of-pearl,  and  we  ate  them  without  the 
use  of  knives.  Then  one  slave  brought  in  a 
graceful  brass  basin,  while  another  presented 
the  soap  and  poured  out  water  for  us  from  a 
slender  brass  water -jug.  A  third  handed  us 
embroidered  Turkish  towels  to  dry  our 
hands  on.  Meanwhile,  an  old  slave  came  in 
with  a  brazier,  sat  down  in  the  middle  of  the 
room,  and  cooked  the  coffee,  while  the  two 
young  slaves  passed  the  delicious  beverage 
to  us  with  toast  and  cakes.  This  was  all  our 
breakfast.  At  its  close  the  Validd  turned  to 
the  old  slave  and  asked :  — 

"Nadji,  what  do  you  suppose  this  young 
Hanoum  wants  to  do?" 

The  old  slave  looked  at  me  with  her  kind, 
motherly  eyes.  "The  young  Hanoum  has 
good  taste.  I  suppose  she  wants  to  marry 
one  of  our  men  and  be  one  of  us.  Indeed 
Allah,  the  great  and  only  God,  be  my  wit- 
ness, but  since  she  has  been  with  us  she  looks 
prettier  and  healthier." 

158 


The  Valide  and  I  shrieked  with  laughter. 

"No,  Nadji,  the  young  Hanoum  has  not 
yet  come  to  such  a  grave  resolution.  She 
wants  to  go  and  talk  with  those  two  young 
men  walking  in  the  garden." 

The  slave  left  her  embers,  walked  to  the 
window,  and  looked  critically  at  the  two  men. 
"  Mashallah ! "  she  cried,  smacking  her  lips, 
"but  they  are  two  worthy  young  specimens. 
The  young  Hanoum  will  want  to  stay  among 
us  more  than  ever." 

"Nadji,  would  you  then  let  her  go?" 

"It  is  not  for  me  to  decide,  but  for  you, 
honored  head  of  a  most  honored  household." 

"  But  would  it  be  right,  Nadji,  to  let  her  go 
talk  to  them?" 

Nadji  looked  me  straight  in  the  eyes  as  if 
to  ascertain  whether  I  were  worthy. 

"She  talks  to  men  when  she  is  at  home, 
my  beloved  mistress." 

"Yes,"  smiled  the  Valide,  "she  does. 
But  you  know,  Nadji,  the  young  Hanoum 
particularly  wishes  to  talk  to  Halil  Bey,  who 

159 


is  to  be  married  in  two  weeks'  time. "  The 
Valide's  smile  was  full  of  mischief. 

Nadji  examined  me  again.  "It  does  not 
matter,  my  Valide.  Halil  Bey's  mind  is 
filled  with  the  thought  of  one  woman,  who 
is  to  be  his,  and  whom  he  has  not  seen. 
His  fancy  is  clothing  her  with  wondrous 
beauty,  and  no  real  person  can  do  any  harm. 
Allah  is  wise  as  well  as  great."  Her  gray 
head  was  bowed  low  at  Allah's  name. 

"I  am  glad  you  approve,  Nadji;  for  this 
young  Hanoum  here  so  pleases  my  fancy  that 
I  am  likely  to  spoil  her."  She  turned  to  me: 
"Run  along,  yavroum,  only  be  sure  to  put 
on  your  wooden  sandals,  for  there  might  be 
some  chill  left  in  the  earth  after  the  rain.  I 
will  notify  the  young  men  of  the  honor  you 
are  about  to  bestow  upon  them." 

A  few  minutes  later  I  was  by  the  side  of 
the  astonished  Halil  Bey,  who,  if  he  ever 
thought  of  me,  thought  of  me  as  in  the  wilds 
of  America.  In  his  gladness  at  seeing  me 
again  he  picked  me  up,  kissed  me  on  both 

160 


cheeks,  and  set  me  down  on  the  bench,  to 
pour  into  my  ears  the  wonders  of  the  beauty 
of  his  unknown  bride  to  be. 

"But  suppose,"  I  suggested  to  him,  when 
his  enthusiasm  at  length  gave  me  an  oppor- 
tunity to  put  in  an  objection,  "suppose  when 
you  raise  the  veil,  instead  of  seeing  a  beau- 
tiful young  girl  with  a  slim  figure,  as  you 
picture  her  to  yourself,  you  meet  a  fat,  ugly 
woman,  what  will  you  do?" 

He  laughed  at  the  idea.  "But  I  have  seen 
her  in  the  street  and  she  is  slim.  And  I 
know  she  is  pretty  —  my  heart  tells  me  so." 

Lovers  seem  to  be  the  same  everywhere, 
even  though  they  are  Turkish  lovers,  sup- 
posed by  us  to  be  devoid  of  romantic  rap- 
tures; and  though  I  stayed  some  time  with 
Halil  Bey,  we  talked  of  nothing  except  the 
girl  who  was  to  become  his  first  and  —  as  he 
vowed  —  his  only  wife. 

When  I  returned  to  the  house  several  of 
its  inmates  shook  their  fingers  at  me  and 
sang  in  chorus,  "I  saw  you!"  But  the 

161 


Valide  put  a  protecting  arm  around  me,  and 
—  looking  around  for  the  effect  it  would  pro- 
duce —  impressively  gave  me  this  invitation : 

"  Yavroum,  Selim  Pasha  wishes  me  to  beg 
of  you  to  do  him  the  honor  to  dine  to-night 
with  him  and  his  guests." 

It  was  my  turn  to  shake  my  fingers  at 
the  Turkish  women,  as  I  challenged  them: 
"Those  who  do  not  admit  that  they  would 
give  anything  to  be  in  my  wooden  sandals, 
let  them  raise  their  hands ! " 

Not  a  hand  was  raised,  though  they  might 
have  debated  the  point  further,  had  not 
Houlme  run  her  arm  through  mine  and  in- 
terrupted with:  "Young  Hanoum,  the  sun 
does  not  favor  those  who  travel  many  hours 
after  he  has  started  his  journey.  Let  us 
start.  We  have  a  long  way  before  us,  and 
the  day  I  know  will  prove  interesting." 

In  my  room  I  vas  surprised  to  find  a  new 
tchitcharf  of  silver-gray  silk.  "What  is  this 
for?"  I  asked  Houlme. 

"You  cannot  go  to  the  meeting  unless 
162 


you  have  this  color  on.  It  is  the  emblem  of 
dawn,  the  dawn  we  are  about  to  bring  to  the 
Turkish  women's  life." 

A  few  minutes  later  Houlme  and  I,  in  com- 
pany with  an  old  slave  inside  the  carriage 
with  us,  and  an  old  eunuch,  who  was  the 
shadow  of  Houlme,  sitting  on  the  box  by  the 
coachman,  were  driving  to  Hanoum  Zeybah's 
house,  where  the  meeting  was  to  be  held. 
It  was  half-past  ten  o'clock  when  we  reached 
there,  and  we  were  the  last  to  arrive.  Inside 
the  door  stood  two  gray  phantoms,  to  whom 
we  gave  the  password,  "Twilight." 

In  a  large  hall  stood  the  rest  of  the  gray 
symbols  of  dawn,  all  so  closely  veiled  as  to 
be  unrecognizable.  Without  a  sound  '  they 
saluted  us  in  the  Turkish  fashion;  and  then 
we  were  all  conducted  to  a  large  room.  It 
was  very  mysterious  and  conspirator-like. 
The  nine  windows  of  the  room  were  tightly 
shuttered,  that  no  ray  of  unromantic  sun- 
light should  fall  upon  the  forerunners  of  a 
new  epoch.  We  all  sat  crosslegged  and  mo- 

163 


tionless  on  a  bare  settee  which  ran  around 
two  sides  of  the  room.  Over  our  heads  hung 
a  banner  of  sky-blue  silk,  embroidered  in 
silver  with  " Freedom  for  Women!"  Beneath 
that  hung  another  of  black,  bearing  the 
words  "Down  with  the  Old  Ideas!"  in  fiery 
red.  There  were  no  chairs.  The  beautiful 
oak  floor  was  partially  covered  with  Eastern 
rugs,  and  on  some  fat  cushions  in  the  middle 
of  the  room  sat  our  hostess,  the  originator 
and  president  of  the  society. 

President  Zeybah  clapped  her  hands  three 
times  and  announced  that  the  meeting  was 
about  to  begin.  It  did  begin,  and  continued 
for  more  than  an  hour. 

The  president  produced  a  manuscript  with 
gilt  edges  from  a  European  satchel  at  her 
side,  and  read  her  contribution  to  the  club. 

"Women,  fellow  -  sufferers,  and  fellow- 
workers,"  she  read  "we  come  here  to-day  to 
dig  a  little  farther  into  the  thick  wall  which 
the  tyranny  of  man  has  built  about  us.  By 
nature  woman  was  meant  to  be  the  ruler. 

164 


By  her  intuition,  her  sympathy,  her  unself- 
ishness, her  maternal  instinct,  she  is  the 
greatest  of  the  earth.  One  thing  alone  brute 
nature  gave  to  man  —  strength !  Through 
that  he  has  subjugated  woman.  Let  us  rise 
and  break  our  bonds!  Let  us  stand  up  en 
masse  and  defy  the  brute  who  now  domi- 
nates us!  We  are  the  givers  of  life;  we  must 
be  the  rulers  and  lawmakers  as  well.  Down 
with  man!" 

In  this  strain,  and  in  a  deep  voice  befitting 
a  ruler  and  a  lawmaker,  the  president  read 
from  her  gilt-edged  paper,  and  ended  up 
with  the  proposition  that  six  members  of  the 
club  should  be  chosen  by  lot  to  kill  them- 
selves, as  a  protest  against  the  existing  order 
of  things.  The  proposition,  which  was  made 
in  all  seriousness,  provided,  however,  —  with 
a  naivete  that  might  have  imperilled  the 
gravity  of  a  meeting  of  American  women,  - 
that  the  president  of  the  club  should  be  ex- 
empt from  participation  in  the  lot-draw- 
ing. 

165 


This  plan  for  making  tyrant  man  sit  up 
and  take  notice  was  received  with  a  murmur 
from  the  veiled  listeners,  rather  more  of  ap- 
proval than  of  disapproval.  The  question, 
however,  was  not  discussed  further  at  the 
moment,  and  the  president  called  on  another 
lady  to  read  her  paper. 

The  first  speaker  having  proved  that  wo- 
men were  great  and  were  only  kept  from 
recognition  by  the  brute  force  of  man,  the 
second  one  went  ahead  to  prove  that  women 
were  capable  of  doing  as  good  work  as  men 
in  certain  cases,  by  citing  George  Sand, 
George  Eliot,  and  others.  A  third  one  as- 
serted that  women  were  mere  playthings  in 
the  hands  of  men,  and  called  on  them  to 
rouse  themselves  and  show  that  they  were 
capable  of  being  something  better. 

I  was  utterly  disgusted  at  the  whole  meet- 
ing. I  might  just  as  well  have  been  in  one 
of  those  silly  clubs  in  New  York  where 
women  congregate  to  read  their  immature 
compositions.  There  were  totally  lacking  the 

1 66 


sincerity,  the  spontaneity,  and  the  frankness 
which  usually  characterize  Turkish  women. 

When  the  meeting  adjourned,  we  passed 
into  several  dressing-rooms,  where  the  veiled 
and  secret  conspirators  against  the  dominion 
of  man  all  kept  luncheon  gowns.  When  the 
assemblage  came  together  again,  the  majority 
of  them  were  corseted  and  in  Paris  frocks, 
and  all  were  quite  unveiled,  the  mystery  of 
the  meeting  having  been  mere  pretense  and 
affectation.  These  forty-odd  women,  rang- 
ing in  age  from  seventeen  to  forty,  were 
drawn  from  the  flower  of  the  Turkish  aris- 
tocracy. Luncheon  was  served  in  a  large 
room  overlooking  the  Golden  Horn.  We 
were  seated  at  four  round  tables,  and  during 
the  meal  the  great  cause  was  forgotten,  and 
they  were  again  spontaneous  Turkish  wo- 
men. 

After  luncheon  we  passed  into  the  reclin- 
ing room,  where  Eastern  dances  and  music 
«vere  given  for  our  pleasure.  I  was  happy 
to  notice  that  as  we  lay  about  on  the  couches, 

167 


the  Parisian-gowned  ladies  were  distinctly 
less  comfortable  than  the  rest  of  us.  After 
the  music  was  over,  the  heavy  conversation 
was  started  again  by  our  hostess,  who  was 
never  happy  for  long  unless  she  considered 
that  she  was  shining  intellectually.  She  was 
not  yet  thirty,  but  had  found  time  already 
to  divorce  two  husbands. 

"What  I  like  most  about  American  wo- 
men," she  said  to  me  and  to  her  disciples,  "is 
the  courage  they  have  in  discarding  their 
husbands.  Why  should  a  woman  continue 
to  live  with  a  man  whom  she  finds  to  be  not 
her  intellectual  companion?"  Her  pose  was 
fine,  as  she  uttered  these  words,  and  mur- 
murs of  appreciation  arose  among  her  hearers. 

"Few  men  are  women's  companions  in- 
tellectually," I  said,  having  listened  to  as 
much  as  I  could  without  replying  "The 
only  men  who  are  the  companions  of  intel- 
lectual women  are  half-baked  poets,  sopho- 
mores, and  degenerates.  Normal  men,  nice 
men,  intelligent  men,  never  talk  the  tomfool- 

168 


ery  women  want  to  talk  about.  They  are 
too  busy  with  things  worth  wrhile  to  sit  down 
and  ponder  over  the  gyrations  of  their  souls. 
In  fact,  they  don't  have  to  worry  over  their 
souls  at  all.  They  are  strong  and  healthy, 
and  live  their  useful  lives  without  taking  time 
to  store  their  heads  with  all  the  nonsense 
women  do." 

Those  forty  women  breathed  heavily.  To 
them  I  represented  freedom  and  intellect- 
ual advancement,  and  here  I  was  smashing 
their  ideals  unmercifully.  I  pretended  not 
to  notice  the  effect  of  my  words,  and  con- 
tinued :  — 

"If  you  expect  real  men  of  any  nationality 
to  sit  down  and  talk  to  you  about  your  souls, 
you  will  find  them  disappointing.  As  for 
American  women,  they  are  as  different  from 
you  as  a  dog  from  a  bird.  Whatever  they  do 
cannot  affect  you.  They  are  a  different  stock 
altogether.  Will  you  tell  me  what  you  are 
working  for  specifically?" 

"Freedom  to  choose  our  husbands,  and 

169 


freedom  to  go  about  with  men  as  we  like," 
the  president  answered. 

"We  want  to  go  about  the  world  unchap- 
eroned  and  free  —  to  travel  all  over  the  world 
if  we  choose,"  another  answered. 

The  last  speaker  was  a  girl  barely  eight- 
een years  old,  and  beautiful  with  a  beauty 
the  East  alone  can  produce.  I  laughed 
openly. 

"My  dear  child,"  I  said,  "you  could  not 
go  alone  for  half  a  day  without  having  all 
sorts  of  things  happening  to  you." 

"But  that  is  just  what  I  want,"  she  re- 
torted. "I  am  tired  of  my  humdrum  life, 
when  such  delicious  things  as  one  reads  of 
in  books  might  be  happening  to  me." 

This  girl  in  her  youth  and  simplicity  was 
really  revealing  the  cause  of  their  malady. 
They  were  all  fed  on  French  novels. 

"Even  American  women,  when  they  are 
young,  do  not  go  about  with  men  unchap- 
eroned  as  you  think,"  I  said,  "nor  do  they 
travel  alone  with  men,  at  any  age.  Of  course 

170 


there  are  American  women  who  are  com- 
pelled to  go  about  alone  a  good  deal,  because 
they  are  earning  their  own  living;  but  they 
only  do  this  because  they  have  to.  As  to 
what  Zeybah  Hanoum  said  about  their  di- 
vorcing their  husbands  frequently,  I  am 
afraid  she  is  looking  at  American  civilization 
from  the  seamy  side.  I  do  not  deny  that 
there  are  American  women  who  have  parted 
with  decency,  and  whom  one  divorce  more 
or  less  does  not  affect;  but  the  really  nice 
American  women  have  as  much  horror  of 
divorce  as  any  well-bred  European  woman." 
Zeybah  Hanoum  here  interrupted  me.  "I 
beg  your  pardon,  but  I  have  read  in  the 
American  papers  that  a  woman  may  divorce 
her  husband  in  the  morning,  and  marry 
again  in  the  afternoon.  Also,  that  no  other 
reason  for  divorce  is  required  than  that  she 
does  not  wish  to  continue  to  live  with  him. 
It  is  called  'incompatibility  of  temper.'  I 
believe"  -  here  the  learned  lady  threw  back 
her  head,  and  turned  to  the  rest  of  her  audi- 


ence  —  "  that  a  nation  that  has  such  laws  has 
them  not  for  those  who  have  parted  with 
decency,  but  for  the  nice  women,  in  order  to 
help  them  to  rid  themselves  of  undesirable 
husbands.  I  hear  that  the  courts  proclaim 
that  a  woman  may  not  only  get  rid  of  her 
husband,  but  that  the  husband  shall  continue 
to  support  her.  Can  you  tell  me  after  that 
that  America  does  not  uphold  divorce?" 

I  was  rather  staggered  by  her  argument, 
although  I  knew  that  fundamentally  she  was 
mistaken. 

"What  you  say  is  true,  in  a  way,"  I  ad- 
mitted; "but  the  fact  remains  that  nice 
American  women  do  not  believe  in  indis- 
criminate divorcing." 

"  Oh,  well,  there  are  always  backward  wo- 
men in  every  country.  I  was  told  by  an 
American  lady,  once,  that  not  to  be  divorced 
nowadays  was  the  exception.  And  wait  till 
the  women  have  the  power  to  vote.  That  is 
the  one  thing  the  American  men  are  afraid 
to  grant  women,  because  they  know  that 
172 


then  women  will  make  laws  to  suit  them- 
selves." 

I  did  not  ask  Zeybah  Hanoum  how  much 
farther  women  could  go,  with  the  ballot,  than 
she  thought  they  already  had  gone,  in  the 
home  of  the  free.  I  was  very  sorry  for  the 
women  who  were  under  her  influence,  be- 
cause most  of  them  were  young  and  all  of 
them  inexperienced,  so  I  took  up  another  side 
of  the  subject. 

"Let's  leave  American  women  alone  then, 
since  you  will  only  believe  the  yellow  journal- 
ism, and  come  to  your  own  affairs.  Do  you 
really  think  that  by  having  six  women  kill 
themselves  you  will  accomplish  anything?" 

"  At  any  rate,  we  shall  teach  men  a  lesson." 

"And  that  is?" 

"That  we  are  capable  of  going  to  any 
lengths  to  get  what  we  want.  Woman  is  a 
power  to-day!" 

"But  do  you  think  you  can  bring  about 
what  you  want  by  violent  methods?  There 
are  a  great  many  among  your  men  who  be- 

173 


lieve  that  women  should  be  free  to  choose 
their  husbands,  and  to  educate  themselves 
as  they  like.  So  far  you  have  been  given 
privileges  in  studying  music  and  art.  Little 
by  little  other  things  will  come.  But  remem- 
ber, that  to  one  woman  who  thinks  as  you  do 
there  are  a  hundred  who  don't." 

''They  are  blind,  and  we  wish  to  open  their 
eyes.  It  is  our  duty  —  in  the  name  of  hu- 
manity. We  owe  this  to  the  Progress  of  the 
World,"  Zeybah  announced  oratorically. 

"Since  you  have  descended  to  Duty,"  I 
said  with  some  heat,  "I  suppose  you  are 
capable  of  anything  cruel  and  unkind." 

At  this  point  a  lady  — •  a  visitor,  like  me  — 
who  was  an  instructress  in  a  girls'  seminary, 
though  she  was  the  daughter  of  a  rich  man, 
quietly  put  in:  "Zeybah  Hanoum,  I  should 
like  to  hear  the  lady  tell  us  how  she  thinks  it 
would  be  wise  to  proceed.  She  knows  our 
ways,  what  privileges  we  now  have,  and  our 
shortcomings." 

"Yes,  yes,"  several  voices  cried. 

174 


'  Since  you  do  not  like  your  system,  —  al- 
though it  seems  to  me  admirable  on  the 
whole,  —  it  is  only  right  that  you  should  be 
allowed  to  live  your  lives  as  you  want  to. 
Only  you  must  go  about  it  in  a  sensible  way, 
and  take  into  consideration  the  others  who 
are  involved  in  it.  For  example,  I  should 
think  that  you  ought  to  tear  down  that  ban- 
ner of  'Down  with  the  Old  Ideas!'  and  put 
up  another,  reading:  'Respect  for  the  Old 
Ideas,  Freedom  to  the  New ! '  Then,  instead 
of  closeting  yourselves  together  and  behaving 
like  imitation  French  Anarchists,  you  ought 
to  have  your  meetings  in  the  open.  Since  you 
all  wear  your  veils,  you  can  invite  the  men 
who  are  sympathetic  to  your  movement,  to 
take  an  interest  in  it.  Little  by  little,  more 
men  will  come,  and  also  more  women. 
Really,  your  troubles  are  not  so  serious  as 
those  of  European  women,  because  under 
the  laws  of  the  Koran  women  have  many 
privileges  unheard  of  in  other  countries.  The 
Mussulman  system  is  very  socialistic.  What 

175 


you  want  is  to  be  free  to  mingle  with  men. 
Since  you  want  it,  you  had  better  have  it, 
though  you  are  overrating  the  privilege. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  poetry  and  a  great 
deal  of  charm  in  your  system;  but  if  you 
don't  like  it,  you  don't  like  it.  You  will  all 
be  mothers  some  day ;  bring  up  your  sons  in 
the  new  thought,  and  thus  gradually  you  will 
bring  about  the  change." 

''But  you  are  spoiling  our  society,"  the 
president  cried.  "What  is  the  object  of  it  if 
not  to  push  things  along  fast?" 

"I  do  not  agree  with  you,"  the  quiet  lady 
said.  "  I  believe  in  what  the  foreign  Hanoum 
has  just  said.  We  ought  to  go  about  this  in  a 
rational  manner." 

"  Do  I  understand  that  you  do  not  approve 
of  our  association?"  the  president  asked, 
bristling  up. 

"Not  in  the  least;  but  I  do  not  believe  in 
the  bloody  demonstration  you  proposed." 

Thereupon  arose  a  discussion  which  lasted 
the  whole  afternoon.  The  president  was 

176 


vehemently  in  favor  of  her  plan  for  having 
six  of  the  members  kill  themselves.  Most  of 
the  others,  however,  encouraged  by  the 
moral  support  they  received  from  me  and 
from  the  quiet  lady,  finally  admitted  that 
they  did  not  wish  to  die.  Yet  that  they  would 
unhesitatingly  have  committed  suicide,  had 
the  club  decided  on  the  plan,  and  had  the  lot 
fallen  to  them,  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt, 
knowing  the  nature  of  Turkish  women  as 
I  do. 

Just  as  the  meeting  was  breaking  up  I  was 
very  much  surprised  to  have  Houlmd  come 
to  me  and  ask  me  if  I  should  like  to  meet  the 
young  woman  whom  Halil  Bey  was  to  marry 
in  two  weeks.  I  had  had  no  inkling  that  she 
was  at  the  meeting,  or  even  that  she  held  ad- 
vanced views.  Naturally  I  was  most  anxious 
to  know  her,  and  as  it  happened  that  we  were 
going  a  good  part  of  the  way  home  in  the 
same  direction,  she  invited  me  to  drive  with 
her  in  her  brougham  until  we  came  to  the 
parting  of  the  ways.  She  was  a  very  pretty 

177 


brunette,  with  large  violet  eyes,  and  such  a 
lovely,  kissable  mouth  —  but  what  a  pre- 
cieuse ! 

"I  suppose  you  are  very  busy  over  your 
coming  marriage,"  I  said  to  her. 

"My  marriage  interests  me  very  little, 
mademoiselle,"  she  replied  coldly.  "In  fact, 
I  think  of  it  as  little  as  possible.  It  is  not  a 
love-match,  you  know,  but  an  arranged  af- 
fair." 

"But  your  future  husband  is  young,  hand- 
some, and  a  well-educated  nobleman.  I  feel 
certain  that  you  will  find  in  him  your  ideal." 

"Indeed!"  she  snapped.  "So  you  think 
that  all  a  man  has  to  have,  to  be  acceptable 
to  a  young  woman,  is  youth,  good  looks,  and 
education?" 

"What  else?" 

"A  beautiful  mind,"  she  said,  as  pom- 
pously as  Zeybah  Hanoum  herself  might  have 
spoken.  "I  wish  my  husband  to  understand 
the  world  of  Kant  and  Schopenhauer  and  all 
the  great  thinkers.  I  wish  him  to  treat  me 

178 


JUJU 


as  if  I,  too,  had  a  mind  capable  of  soaring 
above  the  sordid  conditions  of  our  daily  life. 
Do  you  think,  when  I  am  married,  that  I  am 
likely  to  find  in  Halil  Bey  a  man  to  speak  to 
me  on  these  subjects  ?  No !  he  will  tell  me  that 
I  am  beautiful,  and  that  he  loves  me.  As  if 
his  paltry  love  mattered  in  this  great  world." 

"I  should  think  it  would  matter  to  him, 
and  to  you." 

"Excuse  me,  mademoiselle,  but  are  you 
not  taking  rather  a  commonplace  view  of 
happiness?" 

''Perhaps  I  am.  But  I  might  learn  to  ap- 
preciate a  high-minded  one  if  it  were  ex- 
plained to  me." 

"I  should  like  a  husband  who  would  forget 
his  petty  personality,  and  me  as  well;  who 
would  realize  that  the  greatest  love  of  all  is 
intellectual  companionship.  The  other  kind 
of  love  is  good  enough  for  the  inferior  class  of 
people,  whose  only  participation  in  the  great 
world  is  their  part  in  the  perpetuation  of  the 
race." 

179 


"How  do  you  know  that  your  future  hus- 
band is  not  animated  by  the  same  noble  ideas 
as  you  are?"  I  asked,  though  I  had  no  such 
hope  myself. 

"Quite  impossible!  Our  men  are  incapa- 
ble of  appreciating  such  high  ideals  of  life, 
since  they  allow  their  women  so  little  free- 
dom." 

By  the  time  I  parted  from  Halil  Bey's 
fiancee  I  was  so  filled  up  with  high  ideals  that 
if  Houlm£  Hanoum  had  talked  any  more  in 
the  same  line  I  should  have  gone  mad.  "  Poor 
Halil  Bey!"  I  kept  thinking  to  myself. 

Once  home  I  had  to  rush  to  my  room  to 
get  ready  to  dine  with  the  men.  The  Valide 
followed  me. 

"  Yavroum,  what  will  you  wear  to-night?" 

"Dear  me!  I  have  not  had  time  to  think 
of  that.  I  have  not  a  dinner  gown  with  me. 
I  suppose  a  little  white  lawn  will  have  to 
do." 

"I  have  thought  all  about  it,  and  I  have 
several  gowns  for  you  to  choose  from.  As 

1 80 


soon  as  your  bath  has  been  given  to  you, 
come  to  me." 

In  her  apartment  I  found  a  bevy  of  women 
all  anxious  to  help  in  my  attiring.  Of  all  the 
beautiful  clothes  displayed  the  choice  fell  on 
a  lovely  brocade  which  the  Valide  had  worn 
in  years  gone  by.  With  the  help  of  the  wives 
and  several  of  their  slaves,  and  with  jewelry 
enough  to  start  a  goldsmith's  shop,  I  was 
made  ready  for  the  extraordinary  occasion. 
When  they  were  through  with  me  I  looked  as 
if  I  were  for  sale,  and  said  so. 

"I  do  hope,  yavroum,"  the  Valide  said 
piously,  "that  you  will  find  your  master 
there." 

"Allah  bayouk!"  murmured  several  wo- 
men, with  bowed  heads. 

The  Valide  conducted  me  to  the  mabeyn, 
or  dividing  line  between  the  haremlik  and 
selamlik,  where  Selim  Pasha  himself  was 
waiting  for  me,  arrayed  in  his  uniform.  The 
rest  of  the  guests  were  in  European  clothes, 
and  after  the  introductions  were  over,  I  told 

181 


them  that  a  few  of  them  at  least  would  have 
to  approach  the  Valide  for  my  hand,  other- 
wise she  might  fear  that  she  had  not  done  all 
in  her  power  to  make  me  charming. 

The  dinner  was  a  very  interesting  one;  in- 
deed, I  believe  it  was  the  most  interesting  one 
I  have  ever  been  to.  Contrary  to  the  opinion 
of  most  people  who  do  not  know  them,  the 
Turks  are  very  attractive  men.  They  are 
frank,  chivalrous,  and  above  all,  considerate 
to  women.  They  also  possess  a  keen  sense  of 
humor,  and  enjoy  a  joke  even  at  their  own 
expense.  They  are  good  talkers,  and  pretty 
well  informed. 

Though  it  was  after  eleven  o'clock  when  I 
returned  to  the  haremlik,  all  the  ladies  and 
slaves  were  sitting  up  to  see  me  return  from 
the  remarkable  adventure  of  dining  with  a 
dozen  men. 

"Well,  yairoitm?"  the  Valide  said. 

"Oh!  I  think  some  of  them  will  ask  you 
for  my  hand.  Don't  you  worry,  Valide." 

She  was  beaming  with  happiness. 
182 


"And  ValideY'  I  said,  after  a  little  more 
talk,  "not  to  trouble  you  again,  I  asked  Selim 
Pasha  if  I  might  speak  to  Halil  Bey  again  to- 
morrow morning  in  the  garden,  and  he  gave 
me  permission.  And  since  my  engagement 
with  him  is  at  half-past  eight,  I  think  I  will 
wish  you  good-night." 

The  next  morning,  though  I  was  on  time 
in  the  garden,  I  found  Halil  Bey  already 
there,  and  very  impatient  to  hear  all  about 
his  fiancee. 

"Tell  me,"  he  cried  out,  as  soon  as  we  had 
shaken  hands,  "is  she  beautiful?" 

"Very,"  I  answered;  "but,  my  poor  boy, 
she  is  crazy  over  Kant  and  Schopenhauer." 

"Who  are  they?"  he  bellowed,  thunder 
in  his  voice  and  fire  in  his  eyes.  "Tell  me 
quick,  and  I  will  draw  every  drop  of  blood 
from  their  veins." 

"I  have  no  doubt  that  in  a  fist-to-fist  en- 
counter you  would  have  the  best  of  them,  but 
they  are  both  dead  and  gone,  and  only  their 
miserable  books  are  left  to  fight  against." 

183 


"Oh!"  he  laughed,  "is  that  all?  I  think 
I  can  take  care  of  that." 

It  was  my  turn  to  laugh.  "Halil  Bey,  you 
have  read  'Cyrano  de  Bergerac'?" 

He  nodded. 

"You  remember  what  Christian  answered 
when  Cyrano  was  trying  to  coach  him:  'Et 
par  tous  les  diables,  je  saurais  toujours  la 
prendre  entre  mes  bras.'  It  did  not  work 
however.  Now,  if  you  want  to  be  happy, 
listen  to  me!  Devote  your  time  from  now 
till  your  marriage-day  to  those  two  writers. 
Memorize  as  much  of  them  as  you  can. 
When  your  bride  comes  home,  and  you  raise 
her  veil  and  see  her  face,  be  a  Spartan. 
Don't  make  love  to  her;  don't  tell  her  that 
she  is  beautiful.  Just  talk  Kant,  recite  Scho- 
penhauer, and  give  her  every  kind  of  tom- 
foolery about  your  soul  that  you  can  think 
of,  provided  it  sounds  highfaluting  enough. 
Buy  all  the  works  of  Maeterlinck  and  make 
her  read  them  to  you  till  she  is  ready  to  drop. 
Tell  her  that  she  is  to  remain  for  you  the  ideal 

184 


companion,  the  complement  of  your  soul, 
and  any  other  silly  thing  that  comes  into 
your  head.  She  will  help  you  along;  for  she 
has  all  that  at  the  tip  of  her  tongue.  Before 
a  month  is  over,  she  will  be  sick  of  it  and 
crazy  for  you.  Then  fire  ahead  and  make 
love  to  her  as  much  as  you  want  to." 

Halil  Bey  looked  anything  but  enthusiastic 
over  the  course  I  had  mapped  out  for  him; 
so  I  had  to  repeat  most  of  the  conversation 
I  had  had  w'ith  his  unknown  lady-love. 

"I  am  going  to  Russia  soon,"  I  ended.  "I 
shall  be  back  in  about  six  weeks.  Come  to 
my  hotel  then  and  tell  me  all  about  it." 

To  leave  Selim  Pasha's  household  for  a 
minute:  other  events  more  important  to  me 
had  quite  driven  Halil  Bey  and  his  fiancee 
from  my  mind  before  I  returned  from  Russia. 
I  was  getting  ready  to  sail  for  America  when 
Halil  Bey  came  to  see  me. 

"Hallo,  Boy!"  I  said.  "How  is  the 
prtcieuse?" 

185 


"She  is  dead!"  he  answered  simply. 

I  stared  at  him.  "Halil!  you  have  not 
killed  her?" 

"Not  I,  but  Kant  and  the  other  fellow  did. 
And  now  hurry  up;  I  want  you  to  come  and 
see  my  little  wife.  She  is  waiting  for  you." 

In  less  than  an  hour  our  carriage  brought 
us  to  Halil  Bey's  residence,  where  a  very 
charming  hostess  was  waiting.  She  threw 
her  arms  around  my  neck  and  kissed  me. 

"Mademoiselle,  I  think  you  are  a  happi- 
ness-giver." 

"And  don't  you  think  that  his  love  and 
your  love  matter  a  little  in  this  world?" 

"It  is  the  only  thing  that  does  matter," 
she  answered,  while  her  violet  eyes  were 
looking,  not  at  me  but  at  Halil  Bey. 

But  to  return  to  the  Suffragettes.  The  most 
noticeable  thing  about  them  was  that  they 
were  attracted  only  by  the  worst  features  of 
our  Western  civilization.  It  was  my  opin- 
ion at  that  time  —  although  recent  political 
1 86 


events  do  not  seem  to  have  borne  me  out  — 
that  Turkey  would  be  better  off  without  any 
influx  of  European  thought. 

That  the  Turks  gain  nothing  from  the 
missionaries  we  send  them  is  still  my  firm 
belief.  To  begin  with,  we  send  them  men 
who  are  ignorant  of  the  history  of  Turkey, 
as  of  the  nature  of  the  Turk,  men  who  are 
narrow  and  bigoted.  Two  of  these  mission- 
aries, who  had  for  three  years  been  in  Asia 
Minor,  came  home  in  the  same  steamer  with 
me.  They  were  of  different  sects,  and  were 
not  on  speaking  terms  with  each  other. 

I  was  talking  with  one  of  them,  and  found 
that  he  hated  the  Turks  as  heartily  as  the 
Master  whose  gospel  he  had  gone  out  to 
teach  commanded  us  to  love  one  another. 
There  was  nothing  too  bad  for  him  to  say 
about  their  morals  and  their  religion.  I 
asked  him  if  he  understood  Turkish. 

"No,  indeed,  I  do  not.  I  find  their  lan- 
guage very  much  like  the  people." 

How  did  he  manage  to  talk  with  the  Turks  ? 

187 


"I  had  an  interpreter,  an  Armenian  who 
was  a  convert  of  mine,"  he  explained  com- 
placently. 

"  What  was  he  before  you  converted  him  ?  " 
I  asked,  amused.  The  man  was  too  small  to 
be  angry  with. 

"He  was  an  Armenian,  naturally,"  he  an- 
swered sharply. 

"I  thought  Armenians  were  Christians," 
I  ventured. 

"Oh,  well,  their  Christianity  does  not 
amount  to  much.  We  have  to  teach  them  the 
real  meaning  of  the  Saviour's  words." 

"Brotherly  love  and  tolerance?"  I  in- 
quired, thinking  of  the  other  missionary 
aboard.  I  received  no  reply  to  this,  and 
presently  asked:  "Did  you  get  to  know 
many  Turks?" 

"No.  They  avoided  us  as  if  we  went  there 
to  do  them  harm.  I  knew  some  fishermen 
and  vendors.  I  only  hope  that  the  example 
of  our  cleanly  lives  will"  help  some  of  them; 
for  we  can  never  preach  to  them:  they  will 
188 


not  come  to  hear  us.  I  shall  write  a  book  on 
Turkey  as  soon  as  I  am  rested." 

He  was  a  fair  average  specimen  of  the 
class  of  men  who  go  to  Turkey  to  educate 
and  uplift  her.  With  few  exceptions  these 
missionaries  are  even  ignorant  of  the  fact 
that  Turkey  is  a  country  with  a  great  past, 
and  with  a  literature  of  its  own  comparable 
to  that  of  Greece. 

The  most  discouraging  thing  about  Turkey 
is  that,  while  the  old-fashioned  Turk  is  a 
man  on  whose  integrity  you  may  depend, 
as  soon  as  a  Turk  becomes  Europeanized 
he  loses  his  own  good  qualities,  without  ob- 
taining those  of  the  West  —  exactly  as  the 
American  Indian  does.  He  is  so  vitally  dif- 
ferent from  us,  and  his  mind  is  so  naif  and 
unspoiled,  that  the  result  of  contact  with  our 
sophisticated  thought  is  very  harmful.  I 
agree  with  Houlme  that  Turkey  ought  to 
work  out  her  own  salvation.  When  she  does, 
I  do  not  believe  that  she  will  be  found  be- 
hind any  Christian  state,  on  account  of  the 

189 


cardinal  virtues  which  the  Turkish  race  pos- 
sesses. Her  religion  has  as  sublime  thoughts 
as  ours.  That  it  has  kept  the  race  practically 
abstainers  from  drink  for  nearly  twenty 
centuries  testifies  to  its  strength. 

In  my  enthusiasm  for  Turkey  I  do  not 
wish  to  be  understood  as  implying  that  Tur- 
key is  perfect,  or  that  all  her  customs  are 
beyond  reproach,  or  that  the  Turks  do  not 
need  "elevating."  On  the  contrary,  there 
are  many  things  about  them  which  to  me  are 
hateful,  and  which  I  cannot  reconcile  with 
their  good  qualities.  One  incident  which  I 
witnessed  in  Selim  Pasha's  household,  just 
before  I  left  it,  makes  me  shudder  even  now 
\vhen  I  happen  to  think  of  it.  It  concerned 
the  pasha's  eldest  son  and  his  wife,  for  whose 
arrival  I  had  been  invited  to  remain  a  few 
days  longer. 


VIII 

THE   LOVE   OF   NOR-SEMBAH    AND 
HAKIF  BEY 

ON  the  day  of  their  arrival  we  rose  earlier 
than  usual  to  help  decorate  the  house.  Roses 
and  lilacs  in  great  quantities  were  sent  in  by 
numerous  households  of  the  vicinity.  The 
old  family  brocades  were  thrown  over  the 
chairs.  Silk  rugs  were  gracing  the  balus- 
trades and  bannisters.  Big  branches  of 
leaves  decorated  the  walls  of  the  vestibule, 
while  pots  of  gay  flowers  placed  on  either 
side  of  the  staircase  added  to  the  generally 
festive  appearance  of  the  house.  Also,  all  the 
members  of  the  household,  from  the  Valide" 
to  the  most  insignificant  slave,  were  dressed 
in  gala  costume. 

Immediately  after  the  midday  meal,  and  in 
spite  of  the  heat,  while  Selim  Pasha's  other 
two  wives  and  I,  with  their  slaves,  were  drink- 

191 


ing  cooling  drinks,  dressed  in  the  thinnest  of 
garments,  the  Valide  and  Djimlah  and  sev- 
eral of  their  slaves  took  their  seats  in  the  large 
springless  carriage,  made  comfortable  with 
soft  cushions,  and  went  to  meet  the  expected 
members  of  the  family. 

A  few  hours  later  the  young  wife  was 
brought  to  the  house,  not  in  the  springless 
wagon,  nor  yet  in  a  brougham,  but  in  a  sedan 
chair.  The  surprise  I  felt  at  this  was  greatly 
increased  by  the  sight  of  the  young  man 
whom  I  rightly  took  to  be  her  husband,  walk- 
ing in  the  heat  by  the  side  of  her  chair,  bare- 
headed, his  fez  in  his  hand,  almost  as  if  he 
were  following  the  dead.  I  had  known  that 
the  young  wife  was  ill,  but  the  festive  air  of 
the  household  had  deceived  me,  even  though 
I  knew  the  Turkish  custom  of  putting  on  their 
gayest  attire  at  the  death  of  their  dear  ones. 
Yet  on  the  countenance  of  this  fezless  youth 
there  could  be  no  dissimulation  of  his  sorrow. 

Though  we  were  all  quite  anxious  to  see 
the  young  wife,  whose  beauty  was  renowned, 

192 


we  had  to  be  content  with  the  announcement 
that  she  would  see  some  of  us  on  the  morrow. 

That  evening,  when  I  went  into  Djimlah's 
apartment,  I  found  her  nursing  the  young 
baby  of  Nor-Sembah  Hanoum,  and  heard 
her  murmuring  these  words:  "You  poor 
little  fading  blossom,  you  dear  bedraggled 
lamb,  they  even  forget  you,  do  they?  I  will 
be  mother  to  you,  little  blossom  of  Allah." 

I  sat  quietly  waiting  till  the  slave  should 
come  to  take  away  the  baby,  after  it  should 
be  fed,  knowing  the  superstition  Turkish  wo- 
men have  about  being  distracted  when  they 
are  performing  this  duty  of  motherhood. 

"Djimlah,"  I  asked,  when  she  was  at  lib- 
erty to  talk  to  me,  "why  were  you  nursing 
that  baby?  Is  the  mother  very  ill  indeed?" 

"111!"  Djimlah  cried;  "she  is  dying.  He 
is  killing  her." 

"Who  is  killing  her?"  I  asked. 

Djimlah's  big  blue  eyes  looked  at  me  in 
surprise  and  wonder/  "Did  not  the  Valide 
tell  you?" 

193 


"No." 

"Then  I  must  tell  you  everything  from  the 
beginning  so  that  you  may  understand  it 
right.  Hakif  Bey  —  that  is  the  Valide's  son  — 
met  Nor-Sembah  when  she  was  visiting  the 
Valide,  who  is  a  distant  relative  of  her  mo- 
ther's. At  that  time,  although  she  was  four- 
teen and  had  already  taken  tcharchaf,  which 
made  her  a  woman,  she  was  so  frail  and  child- 
like that  one  was  apt  to  regard  her  as  not 
grown  up.  Besides,  Hakif  Bey  had  always 
been  absolutely  indifferent  to  women,  and 
no  one  thought  any  harm  could  happen  if  he 
came  into  his  mother's  apartments,  as  he  had 
always  been  in  the  habit  of  doing.  He  was 
devoted  to  the  Valide,  and  his  greatest  plea- 
sure was  to  spend  an  hour  reading  to  her  or 
talking  with  her.  In  these  meetings  he  met 
Nor-Sembah  and  fell  so  violently  in  love  with 
her  that  the  Valide  had  to  keep  the  child  day 
and  night  by  her  side,  for  fear  of  his  stealing 
her  and  making  her  his  own.  It  was  a  very 
difficult  task,  since  Nor-Sembah  was  also 

194 


in  love  with  Hakif  and  quite  hard  to  man- 
age." 

"But  why  didn't  they  marry?"  I  asked. 
"Was  Hakif  too  young?" 

"No,  indeed;  he  was  seventeen.  The  ob- 
jection was  Nor-Sembah's  delicate  health. 
She  had  inherited  weak  lungs  from  her  fam- 
ily, and  her  mother  and  the  Valide  did  not 
think  it  wise  to  let  her  marry  so  young.  They 
managed  to  send  Hakif  away  to  Asia  Minor 
in  an  important  position,  —  for  Hakif  is  very 
clever  and  very  learned,  —  and  promised 
him  that  at  the  end  of  a  year  he  could  have 
his  bride.  I  think  what  kept  him  quiet  for 
the  year  was  not  so  much  that  his  position 
demanded  all  his  attention,  —  though  he 
acquitted  himself  brilliantly  and  the  Sultan 
praised  him  very  much,  —  as  the  feverish 
preparations  he  made  to  have  a  home  for 
his  bride.  He  had  a  lovely  mansion  built, 
with  a  bath-house  as  pretty  as  that  of  his 
mother's.  He  not  only  furnished  the  house, 
but  sent  to  Circassia  and  bought  beautiful 

195 


slavesv  and  dancing  girls.  Being  the  first  son, 
Selim  Pasha  gave  him  a  handsome  allow- 
ance, besides  what  he  made  as  governor.  So 
fervently  did  he  work  that  at  the  end  of  the 
year  everything  was  ready.  Meanwhile  the 
Validd  and  Nor-Sembah's  mother  did  all  they 
could  to  make  the  girl  strong.  But  she  was 
always  the  same,  and  the  doctor  said  that,  in 
addition  to  her  illness,  the  child  was  lovesick; 
so  when,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  Hakif  was 
here  claiming  her,  they  married  them.  You 
ought  to  have  seen  him  when  he  arrived.  He 
was  like  a  hungry  wolf.  They  could  hardly 
keep  him  out  of  the  haremlik. 

"  Many  months  passed  after  they  married 
and  went  to  Asia  Minor,  but  not  a  word  was 
heard  from  them;  and  finally  Selim  Pasha 
himself  went  there  to  find  out  what  was  hap- 
pening.     When  he  came  back,   he  said  - 
though  he  does  not  give  his  opinions  often  - 
that  'the  children  were  loving  each  other  too 
much  to  think  of  Allah  or  parents.'     You 
know,  yavroum,  it  is  not  right  that  mortals 
196 


should  love  so  fiercely.  Evil  spirits  get  jeal- 
ous and  cast  the  evil  eye."  Thus  said  Djim- 
lah,  educated  in  Western  literature,  yet  in  her 
heart  as  Eastern  as  any.  "If  he  had  loved 
her  less  she  might  have  found  strength  in  his 
love,  instead  of  death.  When  word  came 
that  Nor-Sembah  was  blessed  with  Allah's 
greetings  and  was  about  to  be  a  mother,  there 
were  tears  and  cries  in  two  households;  for 
the  doctor  had  said  that  a  child  would  mean 
death  to  the  frail  mother.  Nor-Sembah's 
father  was  wild,  because  she  was  his  only 
daughter,  and  he  loved  her  as  one  loves  the 
blood  of  one's  veins.  He  stormed  and  raged 
and  insisted  that  Nor-Sembah  be  brought 
right  back  to  him.  But  that  was  impossible, 
since  Nor-Sembah  could  not  be  moved ;  and 
besides,  for  nothing  in  the  world  would  Hakif 
allow  any  one  to  be  near  her.  Zafar  Pasha 
-  that  is  her  father  —  took  the  doctors  that 
Hakif  had  sent  to  Constantinople  for  and  went 
with  them  to  Asia,  and  insisted  that  after  the 
child  was  born  she  should  be  brought  here. 

197 


"Young  people  are  crazy!"  Djimlah,  of 
twenty-four  years'  experience,  interrupted 
her  story  to  exclaim  with  scornful  emphasis. 
"Do  you  know  that  both  Nor-Sembah  and 
Hakif  grudge  every  minute  they  give  to  any 
one  except  each  other?  She  does  not  even 
look  at  her  child.  One  would  say  that  the 
glorious  sun  rises  and  sets  in  Hakif  Bey." 

"  But  would  it  not  have  been  better  for  the 
girl  to  have  stayed  at  home,  since  she  had 
good  medical  treatment?"  I  asked. 

"  It  might,  if  they  could  have  been  trusted," 
Djimlah  answered;  "but  they  were  brought 
here  because  they  are  going  to  be  separated." 

"What?"  I  almost  screamed. 

"Yes,"  Dijmlah  said  quietly,  "they  are 
going  to  separate  them,  and  I  am  going  to 
take  care  of  the  child  and  nurse  it  with  my 
little  one." 

"To  separate  them  simply  because  they 
love  each  other,"  I  repeated,  horrified;  "why, 
it  is  inhuman." 

For  the  first  time  during  my  sojourn  in  the 

198 


ML* 


harems  I  had  to  face  Oriental  barbarism.  I 
almost  hated  them,  and  the  laws  that  gave  to 
parents  such  power  over  their  children. 

"  It  may  seem  inhuman  to  you,  but  it  is  the 
only  human  thing  to  do,  under  the  circum- 
stances," Djimlah  went  on,  unruffled.  "When 
a  man  does  not  know  how  to  love  his  wife, 
then  the  parents  have  to  come  in  and  teach 
him.  Anyway,  Nor-Sembah  \vas  born  to  be 
a  fairy,  a  lily,  not  a  wife.  She  is  a  woman's 
breath,  not  a  real  woman.  Allah,  one  spring 
day,  must  have  made  a  beautiful  dream,  and 
out  of  that  vision  must  have  come  Nor-Sem- 
bah ;  but  she  was  never  created  for  the  earth. 
She  is  so  wonderful  that  you  want  to  pray 
before  her.  Wait  till  you  see  her,  you  who 
worship  beauty,  and  who  think  that  Ai'she 
Hanoum  and  I  are  beautiful." 

"  But,  Djimlah,  dear,  will  he  consent  to  the 
separation?" 

"  He  will  have  to.  They  are  going  to  make 
-lim  marry  a  widow  slave  of  about  thirty-five. 
Word  has  been  sent  out  already  to  the  vari- 

199 


cms  harems,  and  by  to-morrow  pretty  slaves 
will  be  coming  in." 

"But  it  might  kill  Nor-Sembah  to  have 
him  take  another  wife,  since  she,  too,  is  so 
much  in  love  with  him." 

"No,  indeed,  because  she  knows  that  it  is 
only  a  temporary  marriage.  At  the  end  of  a 
year  Hakif  will  be  separated  from  the  slave, 
giving  her  a  stipulated  sum  of  money,  and 
then  he  will  again  be  given  back  his  wife  — 
stronger  by  that  time,  let  us  hope.  That  is 
why  they  give  him  a  woman  of  about  thirty- 
five,  so  that  there  will  be  no  children  to  make 
the  marriage  binding." 

"And  will  he  consent  to  this  most  Oriental 
of  arrangements?"  I  could  not  help  asking. 

"He  will  have  to,"  was  the  decisive  reply. 
"  Everything  is  arranged.  He  will  either  have 
to  do  this,  or  his  marriage  will  be  annulled. 
The  old  people  have  seen  to  everything." 

I  was  so    much    disgusted    that    I  could 
hardly  keep  from  telling  Djimlah  what  I 
thought  of  the  whole  arrangement. 
200 


"Don't  be  a  sentimental  fool,  little  blos- 
som," she  adjured  me.  "  What  the  old  people 
want  to  do  is  to  save  her  and  him,  if  they  can. 
Besides,  he  must  learn  to  love  his  wife  for  her 
—  not  for  himself  alone,  as  he  is  doing  now." 

That  night  I  had  the  most  distressing 
nightmares.  Now  I  dreamed  that  I  was  Nor- 
Sembah,  and  again  that  I  was  the  slave,  and 
sometimes  I  was  both  in  one.  I  never  wel- 
comed the  daylight  with  more  pleasure  than  I 
did  the  next  morning.  At  the  same  time,  I 
felt  for  the  first  time  in  my  relations  with  the 
Turks  that  I  was  glad  not  to  be  one  of  them. 

I  was  very  impatient  to  see  the  girl  about 
whose  happiness  I  was  so  much  concerned. 
After  I  had  had  my  bath  and  breakfast, 
Kondje  told  me  in  a  semi-whisper  that  the 
Valide  invited  me  to  go  to  her  sitting-room. 

"Is  Hanoum  Nor-Sembah  there?"  I 
asked. 

Kondje  put  her  brownish  hands  to  her 
breast  and  exclaimed:  "Oh!  honored  Ha- 
noum, how  you  will  love  her!  you, who,  like 

201 


us,  love  beautiful  people  so  much."  She 
opened  her  eyes  wide,  as  if  to  accentuate  what 
she  was  going  to  say  next,  and  extended  her 
hands  upwards  as  she  did  when  in  prayer. 
"  She  is  a  white  jasmine !  She  is  the  morning 
dew  on  the  roses !  She  is  Allah's  own  prayer ! " 
Kondje  was  really  so  moved  at  the  thought 
of  Nor-Sembah's  beauty  that  she  was  trem- 
bling. 

I  went  down  to  the  garden  and  carefully 
chose  the  prettiest  rose  I  could  find,  and 
with  my  little  offering  went  into  the  sitting- 
room. 

The  Valide  rose  from  her  seat  near  the  girl 
and  came  over  to  greet  me.  First  she  pre- 
sented me  to  the  girl's  mother,  then  to  the 
girl  herself,  lying  on  her  couch,  and  then  to 
Hakif  Bey,  who  was  sitting  by  the  side  of  his 
wife,  holding  her  hand. 

I  went  to  the  couch,  took  one  of  the  young 
woman's  hands,  and  kissed  it,  giving  her  my 
rose.  She  smiled  at  me,  without  saying  a 
word.  I  took  a  seat  near  her,  and  do  what  I 

202 


could,  it  was  impossible  for  me  not  to  stare  at 
her.  Djimlah  had  said  the  truth,  the  child 
seemed  to  be  of  divine  origin.  Her  beauty 
was  quite  unearthly.  I  could  see  how  one 
could  become  mad  for  love  of  her,  though 
she  was  not  really  a  woman  even  now,  being 
undeveloped,  like  a  child.  Standing  up  she 
would  probably  have  been  taller  than  the 
average,  but  lying  on  her  couch  she  looked  so 
fairy-like,  so  frail!  Her  skin  was  so  trans- 
parent that  her  veins  showed  in  fine  blue 
lines.  Her  eyes  were  very  large  and  almond- 
shaped,  and  shaded  by  jet  black  lashes.  Her 
nose  and  mouth  were  of  pure  Greek  model- 
ling —  indeed,  there  was  not  one  flaw  to  be 
found  in  her  appearance.  She  was  dressed  in 
a  soft  brocade  of  cream  color,  embroidered  in 
pale  blue  flowers. 

Though  I  knew  that  she  was  quite  ill 
there  was  nothing  of  the  sick  person  about 
her.  Her  gown  was  cut  low  at  the  neck  in 
V-form,  displaying  her  delicate  throat,  which 
was  like  the  stem  of  a  flower,  as  the  Valide* 

203 


put  it.  Her  wavy,  blue-black  hair,  in  two 
long  braids,  lay  on  her  breast. 

The  longer  I  looked  at  her  the  more  I  real- 
ized that  what  really  made  her  so  beautiful 
was  neither  her  wonderful  skin  nor  the  ex- 
quisite modelling  of  her  face,  but  a  flower- 
like  candor,  and  an  indescribable  purity  that 
emanated  from  her  whole  personality. 

It  has  always  been  a  mystery  to  me  that  the 
Turks,  who  can  produce  such  types  of  purity 
as  we  can  hardly  conceive  of  in  our  Western 
civilization,  should  be  supposed  by  us  to  be 
voluptuous  and  sensual.  Quite  often,  in  look- 
ing at  certain  children  of  the  Latin  and  Anglo- 
Saxon  races,  I  find  myself  wondering  what 
kind  of  love  could  have  given  them  birth,  so 
animal-like  are  they  in  expression  and  de- 
portment. With  the  ordinary  Turkish  child 
it  is  quite  different.  Often  on  meeting  a 
group  of  them,  and  especially  of  little  girls, 
I  have  stopped  and  watched  them  with  plea- 
sure, because  they  looked  so  pure,  so  simple, 
above  all  so  childlike. 

204 


One  day  when  I  was  wondering  on  this 
subject,  I  asked  the  Valide",  with  whom  I 
happened  to  be,  whether  the  children  re- 
flected the  fathers  or  the  mothers  more. 

"A  child  is  neither  its  father  nor  its  mo- 
ther," she  answered  me.  "Children  are 
either  the  products  of  the  highest  type  of  love 
—  a  divine  conception  almost  —  or  of  an  in- 
tellectual love  almost  as  high;  or  else  they 
are  mere  animal  creations,  or,  lower  yet,  the 
results  of  evil  and  voluptuous  desires." 

The  Latin  races  will  talk  of  the  sexual  rela- 
tion of  men  and  women  in  a  way  to  take  from 
it  all  sanctity,  all  poetry,  all  romance.  The 
Anglo-Saxons  seldom  touch  on  the  subject, 
for  it  is  something  not  to  be  mentioned.  The 
high-minded  Oriental,  differing  from  both, 
will  speak  of  it  freely,  either  with  reverence, 
as  one  does  of  religion,  or  with  poetic  feeling, 
as  one  does  of  the  coming  of  the  spring  or 
the  babbling  of  the  brook.  It  is  to  him  either 
big  and  overwhelming,  as  one's  faith  toward 
one's  God,  or  lighter,  but  very  exquisite. 

205 


The  Valide",  that  day,  while  we  sat  amid 
the  pine  trees,  spoke  about  human  love  with 
a  mysticism  and  reverence  as  if  she  were  in 
the  presence  of  the  great  Allah  in  whom  she 
believed  so  fervently.  Whether  her  ideas  were 
taken  from  some  Eastern  book  or  belief  of 
which  I  had  never  heard,  or  whether  they 
were  her  own,  I  do  not  know. 

"When  two  human  beings  come  together, 
yavroum,  some  motive  brings  them  together. 
Generally  the  motive  is  love;  but  love,  like 
every  other  thing  in  life,  has  its  degrees.  The 
highest  of  all  is  the  unconscious  offering  of 
one's  heart,  not  to  the  man  or  the  woman  as  an 
individual,  but  to  the  man  or  woman  as  the 
earthly  incarnation  of  the  deity  of  love.  This 
is  the  highest  love,  and  the  children  that 
spring  from  that  love  must  be  perfect.  This 
must  have  been  the  way  we  were  first  created, 
and  the  mortal  sin  which  our  ancestors  com- 
mitted, I  believe,  was  when  they  forgot  this 
conception  of  love  and  degraded  what  was 
once  a  divine  conception  into  a  mere  physical 

206 


relation.  However,  I  believe  that  we  still 
retain  the  divine  spark  within  us,  and  that 
it  may  be  rekindled,  and  that  the  children 
born  from  such  a  perfect  love  are  our  perfect 
human  beings.  Such  a  birth  must  have  had 
our  prophet,  and  your  prophet,  and  all  the 
prophets  that  have  lived  in  the  history  of  the 
world. 

"But  the  majority  of  people  marry  from 
motives  other  than  the  highest  love.  If  these 
motives  be  social  or  mercenary,  the  children 
born  from  such  unions  are  the  indifferent  hu- 
man beings  one  sees.  There  are  motives  even 
baser,  and  from  these  we  have  the  moral  and 
physical  cripples.  Perhaps  this  thought  may 
have  been  in  the  minds  of  the  ancient  Greeks 
when  they  condemned  the  physically  crippled 
children  to  death.  The  moral  cripples  they 
could  not  know  till  they  grew  up." 

This  conversation  with  the  Valide  came 
back  to  me  as  I  was  looking  in  speechless 
admiration  at  the  exquisite  beauty  of  Nor- 
Sembah.  From  my  revery  the  sick  girl's  voice 

207 


awakened  me.  It  was  the  voice  one  might 
have  expected  from  such  a  perfect  creature. 

"The  Valide  tells  me  that  if  I  ask  you,  you 
will  read  me  a  little  of  the  French  poetry." 

From  under  her  pillow  she  drew  a  volume 
of  Victor  Hugo's  "Feuilles  d'Automne,"  and 
thus,  thanks  to  French  poetry,  I  saw  a  little 
more  of  the  girl  than  I  otherwise  should. 
While  I  was  reading  to  her,  the  young  hus- 
band sat  watching  his  wife.  It  might  have 
been  my  imagination,  but  I  had  the  feeling 
that  the  intensity  of  his  gaze  tired  her,  that 
had  he  gone  out  she  would  have  rested 
better. 

The  next  day  I  went  to  read  to  Nor-Sem- 
bah  again,  as  I  had  promised.  In  the  sitting- 
room,  on  this  day,  there  were  the  two  fathers, 
in  addition  to  the  two  mothers  and  the  young 
husband.  I  started  to  leave  the  room,  when 
I  saw  them  all  there,  but  the  Valide  and  the 
young  wife  asked  me  to  stay,  and  though, 
afterwards,  I  would  have  given  a  good  deal 
not  to  have  been  there,  it  was  my  fate  to  be 

208 


present  at  the  only  disagreeable  scene  I  wit- 
nessed during  my  stay  among  the  harems, 
and  one  which  seemed  to  me  quite  at  vari- 
ance with  their  great  ideas  of  love. 

A  buxom,  good-looking  slave  came  into  the 
room,  magnificently  dressed,  and  offered  us 
some  sweets  from  a  tray  she  was  carrying. 
With  the  exception  of  Hakif  Bey  we  all  took 
some,  and  Nor-Sembah  raised  her  head  a 
little  and  followed  with  her  eyes  the  move- 
ments of  the  slave.  Hakif  Bey  not  only  did 
not  take  any  sweets,  but  while  the  slave  was 
in  the  room  kept  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  garden. 
Nor  did  he  turn  his  head  once,  while  slave 
after  slave  came  into  the  room  on  various  pre- 
texts. At  last,  when  all  had  come  and  gone, 
like  dress  models  in  a  Parisian  shop,  Selim 
Pasha  came  up  to  his  son  and  taking  his  chin 
in  his  hand  looked  into  his  eyes. 

"As  you  like,  my  son,  as  you  like,"  he  said. 
"  If  you  do  not  choose  for  yourself,  we  shall  be 
compelled  to  choose  for  you.  As  you  like,  I 
say  again." 

209 


Hakif  Bey's  face  was  dark  with  resentment. 
"  Why  do  you  expect  me  to  want  another  wife, 
when  my  heart  is  filled  with  one  only  ?  I  shall 
do  \vhat  you  want  me  to :  I  shall  go  away  - 
but  let  me  at  least  go  alone.  Why  must  I  have 
another  woman?" 

"Because  her  womanly  sympathy  may 
make  the  year  of  waiting  easier  for  you,"  the 
older  man  said,  very  kindly  indeed.  "There 
is  no  need,  my  boy,  for  your  ever  seeing  her. 
But  the  human  heart  is  weak  and  craves  for 
sympathy.  We  want  to  provide  against  that." 

Hakif  Bey  was  about  to  reply  angrily.  One 
could  see  that  from  his  face,  and  from  the 
way  he  drew  his  head  away  from  his  father's 
hand.  But  here  Nor-Sembah  interfered. 
With  a  quick  movement  she  laid  her  head  on 
his  shoulder  and  took  one  of  his  hands  in 
hers,  while  with  the  other  she  grasped  the 
older  man's  robe. 

"Father,"  she  implored,  "let  little  Nor- 
Sembah  choose  for  her  lord.  It  will  make  her 
so  very  happy  to  find  him  a  good  woman  who 
210 


will  be  near  him  while  she  is  getting  stronger. 
I  will  take  some  days  about  it,  and  I  will 
make  sure  that  it  is  a  good  woman  — but  I 
will  do  it,  father;  trust  little  Nor-Sembah ! " 

She  smiled  so  sweetly  and  so  bravely  that 
I  knew  her  cause  was  won.  The  older  man 
kissed  her  and  left  the  room. 

That  afternoon  I  went  with  the  Valide  to  a 
shrine  where  she  was  going  to  pray.  With  us 
was  only  one  other  slave  besides  the  eunuch. 
After  the  prayer  was  over  we  went  to  a  little 
brook  to  have  our  luncheon,  while  the  horses 
were  resting.  After  luncheon  the  slave  lay 
down  under  a  big  tree  and  went  to  sleep,  and 
the  eunuch  drew  off  a  little  way,  yet  keeping 
us  under  his  protecting  eye.  The  Valide  and 
I  took  off  our  shoes  and  stockings  and  put  our 
feet  in  the  brook,  and  then  took  our  work 
from  our  bags  and  began  to  sew.  Thus  do  the 
Turkish  women  often  sit  for  hours  at  a  time. 

"What  do  you  think  of  my  boy,  Hakif 
Bey?"  she  asked,  after  she  had  taken  a  few 
stitches  on  her  embroidery. 

211 


"I  think  he  is  a  splendid  fellow,"  I  an- 
swered sincerely. 

"  Does  he  look  to  you  as  if  he  could  stand 
his  earthly  sorrow  like  a  man?" 

"  Do  you  mean  the  cruel  separation  you  are 
all  preparing  for  him?"  I  asked,  hotly. 

"There !  there !  little  one,  don't  get  excited. 
We  are  doing  our  best." 

"Suppose,"  I  cried,  indignantly,  "suppose 
the  girl  dies  while  he  is  away  —  what  then  ?  " 

The  Valide  laid  her  work  down  in  her  lap, 
clasped  her  hands  together,  and  said,  ever  so 
quietly:  "Nor-Sembah  is  going  to  die,  little 
one;  the  great  doctor  said  so  two  days  ago." 

I  was  choking.  "You  mean  to  say  that, 
knowing  this,  you  are  trying  to  send  him 
away  with  another  wife,  and  not  let  them  be 
together  during  her  last  hours  ?  " 

"Though  the  great  doctor  said  she  was 
going  to  die,  we  still  cling  to  the  hope  of  sav- 
ing her.  Sometimes  even  great  doctors  can 
be  mistaken.  There  is  gusel  vcrcni  in  the 
family,  and  hers  developed  three  years  ago. 
212 


She  was  so  happy  when  she  first  married 
that  for  a  time  the  disease  seemed  to  be 
checked.  But  the  gusel  uereni  came  back 
to  her  worse  than  before." 

Gusel  vereni  is  a  disease  that  I  have  only 
heard  of  among  the  Turks.  It  is  akin  to  our 
consumption,  except  that  the  patient  loses 
nothing  of  her  looks,  and  quite  often  seems  to 
grow  more  beautiful  as  the  end  approaches, 
whence  the  name,  which  means  "beautiful 
decline." 

Notwithstanding  the  Valide's  reasoning,  I 
still  pleaded  with  her.  "Do  not  send  him 
away,  Valide;  it  might  kill  him,  too." 

"But  we  want  to  send  him  away  to  save 
him.  If  he  stays  here  and  she  dies,  he  will 
kill  himself.  If  he  goes  away,  she  might  get 
well;  and  if  she  does  not,  we  will  not  tell  him 
for  a  year.  We  will  take  his  child  to  him, 
and  he  may  learn  to  love  it,  and  for  its  sake 
care  for  life  a  little." 

"But  it  is  so  cruel  for  her,"  I  still  per- 
sisted. 

213 


"No,  no,  yavroum,  she  does  not  suffer. 
She  is  earnestly  looking  for  a  good  woman. 
She  never  thinks  for  an  instant  that  she  is 
going  to  die.  If  the  end  comes,  she  will  not 
even  know  it;  for  it  comes  very  beautifully 
and  quietly,  almost  always  when  the  patient 
is  asleep.  All  her  family  died  like  this.  She 
has  been  very  happy  since  her  marriage,  and 
all  her  life  has  been  a  sweet-scented  spring." 

When  the  day  came  for  me  to  leave  the 
harem,  I  was  sorry.  I  wanted  to  stay  and  see 
the  outcome  of  that  little  tragedy.  I  only 
knew  Nor-Sembah  slightly,  but  sometimes  I 
wondered  if  she  had  not  assumed  the  task 
of  finding  a  wife  for  her  husband  only  in 
order  to  gain  time;  or  whether  it  was  with  the 
idea  that  little  by  little  he  would  get  accus- 
tomed to  the  thought  and  choose  one  for  him- 
self. At  any  rate,  when  I  left  the  household 
to  go  to  Russia,  a  week  or  ten  days  later,  the 
question  was  not  yet  settled,  although  she  had 
seen  a  number  of  slaves  and  had  had  short 
talks  with  them. 

214 


My  journey  to  Russia  was  very  absorbing. 
I  saw  many  strange  scenes  and  met  many  in- 
teresting people ;  yet  the  Turkish  lovers  were 
constantly  in  my  mind.  Neither  did  I  forget 
them  on  my  return  to  Constantinople  in  the 
rush  of  getting  off  to  America.  I  wrote  a 
note  to  the  Valide,  and  sent  it  by  a  messenger, 
who  was  to  wait  for  an  answer.  The  answer 
came  from  Aishe  Hanoum,  the  third  wife  of 
Selim  Pasha,  who  told  me  that  both  the 
Valide  and  Djimlah  were  in  the  Stamboul 
home,  where  I  could  go  to  see  them. 

I  broke  a  day's  engagement,  and  set  out  for 
Stamboul.  When  I  reached  the  house,  the 
Valide's  eunuch  opened  the  door  for  me  and 
ushered  me  in.  I  found  the  Valid£  in  her 
room,  but  what  a  difference  there  was  in  her 
countenance!  As  soon  as  I  saw  her  I  knew 
that  the  girl  was  dead.  I  threw  my  arms 
around  her  and  began  to  cry. 

';  Don't !  don't,  my  child !  Don't  go  against 
Allah's  wishes.  Maybe  they  are  happier 
than  we  know.  Kismet!" 

21 .5 


"They!"  I  cried. 

"Sit  down  there,  and  I  will  tell  you."  In  a 
voice  which  was  dry  from  pain,  and  abso- 
lutely colorless,  the  Valide  told  me  the  end  of 
the  lovers. 

"She  only  lived  two  weeks  after  you  went 
away.  Allah  took  her  to  him  very  gently,  and 
Hakif  was  at  her  side.  He  was  very  quiet 
and  dutiful.  He  went  about  the  place  and 
chose  a  grave  for  her.  She  was  fond  of  the 
sea  and  the  pine  trees,  and  he  bought  a  piece 
of  land  with  pines  overlooking  the  Bosphorus. 
There  they  put  her  to  sleep,  and  Hakif  came 
quietly  home.  That  night  it  rained  hard  and 
there  was  a  summer  storm.  Hakif,  in  the 
middle  of  that  stormy  dark  night,  and  while 
every  one  was  in  his  own  room,  perhaps 
thought  of  the  lonely  little  grave  at  the  foot 
of  the  pine  trees  overlooking  the  Bosphorus. 
Perhaps  her  spirit  came  for  him  and  called 
him  to  her.  He  saddled  his  horse  himself,  and 
went  to  sit  with  his  wife  in  her  new  home. 

"Early  in  the  morning  the  gardener  found 

216 


the  horse,  without  rider,  outside  his  door. 
We  hunted  for  Hakif  everywhere.  Then 
his  father  and  I  went  to  the  little  grave  by  the 
sea.  There,  lying  on  her  grave,  was  Hakif, 
quite,  quite  dead." 

"He  killed  himself?"  I  whispered. 

"No!  no!  yavroum.  The  doctor  said  that 
after  he  was  drenched  by  the  rain,  he  prob- 
ably fell  asleep  on  the  grave,  and  a  chill  killed 
him  —  but  I  know.  Allah,  in  his  supreme 
clemency,  took  him  to  his  heart,  and  gave  him 
back  his  bride,  now  cured  from  all  earthly 
ills.  And  now  by  the  foot  of  the  pines,  over- 
looking the  Bosphorus,  there  is  no  longer  a 
solitary  little  grave;  for  there  is  another  that 
keeps  it  company." 

This  was  the  end  of  the  two  lovers,  whose 
love  was  the  cause  of  their  death.  Often  I 
find  myself  dreaming  of  them,  when  heaven's 
lamp  burns  low,  and  when  the  imagination 
roams  into  the  realm  of  the  world  beyond. 
Is  she  an  houri  now?  and  has  he  become 

217 


pure  as  the  first  man  whom  God  created? 
and  are  they  walking  together  in  the  Garden 
of  Eden,  if  that  is  now  above?  It  is  unfor- 
tunate that  some  one  will  always  come  in  to 
light  the  lamp,  when  one's  thoughts  have  gone 
farther  and  farther  away,  until  almost  one  has 
reached  the  river  over  which  the  soul  alone 
may  go.  But  in  the  dusk  the  lights  must  be 
lighted,  and  the  wandering  thoughts  are 
brought  back  from  the  boundary  which  di- 
vides this  world  from  that  which  is  to  come. 
The  little  boat  with  Charon  waiting  in  the 
stern  resolves  itself  into  a  morris  chair;  and 
the  angel  who  was  ready  to  divest  my  soul 
of  my  body  emerges  from  the  gloom  as  a 
bookcase,  while  the  angel's  flaming  copper- 
colored  hair  is  only  the  back  of  some  bril- 
liantly bound  book.  And  of  all  the  musings 
there  only  remains  the  thought  that  some  day 
I  shall  cross  the  river  which  the  lovers  have 
crossed,  and  that  then  I  shall  meet  again 
my  beautiful  Nor-Sembah,  and  know  the 
fate  of  the  lovers. 


IX 


A   DAY'S    ENTERTAINMENT   IN    THE 
HAREM 

THE  next  to  the  last  day  of  my  visit  to 
Djimlah  Hanoum  was  to  be  devoted  to  a 
bath-party  in  my  honor.  This  had  been 
promised  me  before  Nor-Sembah  arrived, 
and  the  Valide  would  not  give  it  up  even 
after  she  saw  how  really  ill  her  daughter-in- 
law  was.  The  Orientals  have  a  sense  of 
hospitality  far  greater  than  ours.  No  sorrow 
or  trouble  of  their  own  must  interfere  with 
the  discharge  of  their  duties  as  hosts.  And 
although  we  all  felt  the  approach  of  the  great 
unavoidable  one,  who  comes  at  the  predes- 
tined time  to  take  our  dear  ones  to  a  better 
world,  still  they  never  considered  relinquish- 
ing the  party  they  had  promised  to  give  me. 

It  was  to  be  an  all-day  affair,  and  the  in- 
mates of  several  of  the  harems  in  the  vicinity 

219 


had  been  invited.  That  morning  the  plain- 
tive sound  of  the  Albanian  flute  woke  me  up 
very  early.  From  the  platform  on  which  my 
bed  was  made  I  could  see  the  shepherd  in 
his  quaint  clothes  mounting  the  hill,  behind 
his  flock.  It  was  so  early  that  the  light  was 
grayish,  and  the  hills  half  lost  in  a  violet  haze. 
So  quiet  was  the  world  that  the  prat !  prat ! 
prat!  of  the  sheep's  feet,  advancing  to  the 
tune  of  the  flute,  was  quite  audible. 

I  left  my  platform  and  went  to  the  window. 
How  different  life  seemed  to  me  through  this 
latticed  window  from  what  it  had  seemed 
only  a  short  time  before  in  New  York!  As 
I  watched  the  day  creeping  across  the  Bos- 
phorus  from  Asia,  I  thought  of  the  course 
of  my  life  during  the  past  six  years.  I  had 
worked  with  the  Americans,  studied  with 
them,  and  learned  to  think  their  ways.  And 
after  six  years  of  hurrying,  of  striving  as  if 
life  counted  only  by  the  amount  of  work 
done,  of  knowledge  acquired,  I  was  back 
again  in  the  calm  leisure  of  Turkey,  where 

220 


Ml* 


eternity  reigned,  and  no  one  hurried.  Not 
to  stay,  for  I  fear  that  he  who  tastes  of 
American  bustle  can  never  again  live  for  long 
without  it.  Yet  as  I  stood  at  my  window  I 
was  happy — happy  to  have  nothing  to  do — • 
happy  merely  to  live  for  the  pleasure  of 
living. 

Everything  around  me  breathed  peace  and 
contentment.  Among  the  Orientals  I  am 
always  overwhelmed  by  a  curious  feeling  of 
resigned  happiness,  such  as  the  West  can 
hardly  conceive  of.  I  was  talking  about  the 
Turks,  lately,  with  some  very  intelligent 
American  men,  and  it  was  only  then  I  fully 
realized  the  impossibility  for  the  Occidental 
mind,  and  especially  for  the  active  and  rest- 
less American  mind,  to  comprehend  the 
Turkish  temperament. 

"You  cannot  convince  me,'1  said  one  of 
my  American  interlocutors,  "that  human  na- 
ture is  different  in  Turkey  from  what  it  is  in 
America." 

But  that  is  exactly  what  is,  in  a  measure, 

221 


the  fact.  And  to  be  able  to  judge  the  Orien- 
tals one  has,  like  me,  to  be  born  among  them, 
to  live  their  life  for  a  time,  and  to  breathe  the 
air  of  contentment  that  fills  their  homes. 

Nowhere  is  the  idea  of  the  greatness  of  the 
Deity  felt  as  among  the  Orientals.  When 
they  tell  you  that  God  is  great,  and  that 
God  alone  knows  what  is  good  for  you,  you 
believe  it.  We,  on  the  other  hand,  believe 
that  it  is  for  us  to  choose  our  course,  to  take 
the  initiative.  God  with  us  is  only  a  coad- 
jutor: "God  helps  those  who  help  them- 
selves," as  our  proverb  teaches  us  from  in- 
fancy. 

A  breeze  shook  the  graceful  mimosa  trees 
beneath  my  window.  The  soft,  penetrating 
perfume  of  that  essentially  Oriental  flower 
rose,  and  brought  to  my  mind  the  remem- 
brance of  my  first  meeting  with  Djimlah, 
before  either  of  us  was  in  her  teens.  It  was 
on  the  Bay  of  the  Bairam.  I  had  gone  with 
my  father  to  pay  a  series  of  calls  on  Turkish 
dignitaries.  In  one  place  we  were  received  in 

222 


an  immense  garden,  where  we  were  refreshed 
with  sherbet  and  given  little  baskets  of  sweets 
to  take  home  with  us.  My  father  and  our  host 
became  engaged  in  a  political  discussion; 
and  I,  feeling  myself  unobserved,  trotted  off 
exploring.  Presently  I  came  upon  a  grove 
of  mimosa  trees.  I  wanted  some  of  the  flow- 
ers. They  were  just  out  of  reach.  I  could 
have  climbed  the  tree,  but  I  had  been  told 
that  I  should  have  to  be  careful  of  my  frock, 
if  Papa  were  to  take  me  with  him.  As  I  stood 
there,  longing,  a  little  girl  spoke  to  me  in 
Turkish :  - 

"Would  you  like  to  have  some  of  those 
flowers?" 

"Yes,  but  I  cannot  reach  them.  Can 
you?"  I  asked.  She  was  taller  than  I. 

"I  cannot  reach  them  either."  She  scru- 
tinized me,  and  added:  "You  are  a  Frank 
child,  are  n't  you?" 

I  drew  myself  up,  my  blood  boiling.  One 
has  to  be  born  in  Constantinople  to  under- 
stand what  the  word  means  to  us.  By  it  we 

223 


designate  the  mongrels  who  are  neither  of 
the  Greek  nor  Turkish  faith,  and  whom  one 
of  our  poets  characterized  as  the  bastards  of 
the  Orient. 

"  I  am  no  Frank,"  I  cried.  "  I  am  a  Greek, 
which  is  a  greater  race  than  yours." 

In  Turkey  we  learn  early  to  defend  our 
nationality.  Perhaps  that  is  the  reason  why 
the  good  Greek  stock  comes  from  there. 

In  a  friendly  tone  the  little  girl  responded : 
"It  is  nice  to  be  a  Greek,  and  not  a  Frank. 
But  your  race  is  not  so  great  as  mine.  This 
is  my  country,  not  yours." 

I  was  only  eight  years  old,  but  I  had  been 
brought  up  on  the  wonders  of  Greece,  and 
knew  all  the  glorious  deeds  of  the  heroes  of 
'21.  I  glared  at  the  little  girl.  She  was  a 
Turk,  taller  and  stronger  than  I,  but  I  was 
not  afraid  of  her. 

"You  have  only  had  this  country  a  few 
hundred  years,"  I  shouted.  "It  was  mine 
before  it  was  yours.  My  forefathers  ruled 
here  when  yours  were  savages.  Constanti- 

224 


nople  is  mine,  by  rights,  not  yours  —  and 
what  is  more  I  can  lick  you." 

I  took  a  step  towards  her,  full  of  militant 
design. 

She  shook  her  head.  "This  is  my  grand- 
father's garden;  you  are  under  our  roof:  it 
would  not  be  polite  to  fight  you."  Oriental 
children  learn  the  holiness  of  hospitality  as 
early  as  Greek  children  learn  of  their  past 
glories.  "  I  saw  you  come  in  with  your  father, 
and  when  you  came  this  way,  I  came,  too, 
to  make  friends.  You  can  have  some  mi- 
mosa —  all  you  like." 

"I  cannot  reach  it,"  I  said,  still  sullen. 

II  You  can  climb  up  on  my  back  and  get  it." 
She  leaned  over  against  the  trunk.  I  scram- 
bled up  on  her  back,  and  picked  many  of  the 
flowers.    I  offered  her  a  few. 

"You  may  keep  them  all,"  she  said;  "they 
are  yours." 

I  was  relenting,  but  not  very  rapidly.  I 
should  have  liked  to  be  friends,  had  she  not 
reminded  me  that  her  race  had  defeated  mine 

225 


We,  from  the  still  enslaved  parts  of  old  Greece, 
are  born  with  that  sore  spot  in  our  hearts. 
When  it  is  touched  it  hurts. 

"I  will  give  you  my  basket,"  she  went  on, 
holding  out  her  little  hand.  "It  came  from 
our  Patissah's  palace.  The  candy  in  it  is 
lovely." 

I  took  her  hand,  and  soberly  we  walked 
about  the  garden  together. 

"My  name  is  Djimlah,"  she  volunteered 
presently,  "and  yours?" 

I  told  her. 

"I  like  you  very  much,"  she  went  on. 
"And  you?" 

Before  we  reached  the  place  where  my 
father  was  still  deep  in  politics,  we  had  for- 
gotten the  differences  with  whfch  our  friend- 
ship had  begun.  She  climbed  up  on  her 
grandfather's  knees,  and  begged  him  to  per- 
suade my  father  to  let  me  stay  with  her  for 
a  few  days. 

The  old  pasha  was  an  influential  man: 
my  father  was  a  Turkish  subject.  I  stayed. 
226 


That  night  Djimlah  and  I  slept  in  the 
same  little  bed,  on  the  floor  of  her  grand- 
mother's room.  It  was  my  first  introduction 
to  a  harem.  After  that  I  often  stayed  with 
her,  and  came  to  know  other  Turkish  girls, 
and  visited  other  Turkish  harems.  Notwith- 
standing our  different  nationality  and  faith, 
Djimlah  and  I  became  fast  friends.  Neither 
time  nor  separation  made  us  forget  each 
other. 

While  I  was  lost  in  my  reminiscences, 
shepherd  and  sheep  had  disappeared  over 
the  purple  hills;  and  gradually  I  became 
aware  that  other  sounds  were  replacing  the 
melody  of  the  flute  that  had  passed  beyond 
my  hearing.  Outside  my  door  there  was  the 
soft  padding  of  bare  feet,  now  approaching, 
now  receding,  as  if  in  suppressed  excitement. 
I  clapped  my  hands,  and  Kondje  rushed  into 
the  room. 

"What  is  happening,  child?"  I  asked. 

Kondje  smacked  her  lips,  and  salaamed 
profoundly.  "They  are  preparing  for  the 

227 


bath-party,  glorious  Hanoum,  which  they 
are  to  give  to-day  in  your  honor."  Another 
salaam.  "Houri  of  Paradise,  if  you  will  let 
me  dress  you  now,  and  bring  you  your  coffee, 
you  may  be  ready  to  see  the  guests  arrive," 
she  said  in  coaxing  tones. 

"Kondje,  my  dear,  I  am  just  as  anxious 
to  see  their  arrival  as  you  are,  so  make  haste." 

While  I  was  drinking  my  coffee,  Kondje" 
again  whirled  into  my  room,  like  a  leaf  in  a 
hurricane,  and  cried :  - 

"Most  glorious  one!  my  heart's  own  little 
one !  [She  was  at  least  six  years  younger  than 
I.]  Light  of  my  pupils!  I  have  just  seen  a 
speck  of  dust  over  the  hilltops.  That  can 
only  be  the  arriving  guests." 

She  flashed  before  my  eyes  a  yellow  silk 
gown.  "See!  I  brought  this  for  you.  It  will 
make  your  beauty  look  as  tender  as  the 
bloom  of  a  ripe  peach." 

Without  more  ceremony  Kondje  started 
dressing  me.  When  I  was  ready,  she  in- 
spected me  critically  and  decided  that  with 

228 


some  red  beads  around  my  throat  and  hair 
I  should  be  as  attractive  as  a  beautiful  pome- 
granate —  disregarding  the  fact  that  a  mo- 
ment before  I  was  to  be  a  peach.  She  rushed 
from  the  room  and  returned  in  a  minute  with 
the  desired  ornaments. 

"Where  did  you  find  them,  Kondje'?"  I 
asked. 

She  made  a  face  at  me,  gave  me  two  kisses 
on  each  cheek,  and  ordered  me  to  keep  still. 
Only  one  thing  troubled  her. 

"Baby  mine,  Allah's  little  flower,  won't 
you  let  me  put  a  little  black  on  your  eye- 
brows and  lids,  and  throw  a  little  gold  dust 
on  your  hair  ?  Ah !  but  you  would  be  won- 
derfully beautiful  then." 

"Kondje,  you  may  do  anything  else  you 
like  with  me;  but  you  are  not  to  put  any 
black  about  my  eyes." 

She  rushed  over  and  gave  me  an  implor- 
ing hug.  "Dear  one,  don't  you  know  that 
Allah  wants  people  to  look  their  prettiest? 
You  know  that  at  the  entrance  to  Paradise 

229 


husbands  are  asked  first  of  all  whether  they 
have  kept  their  wives  provided  with  the 
proper  number  of  black  pencils  for  their 
eyebrows!" 

"As  I  have  not  a  husband  to  be  bothered 
about  it  at  the  gate  of  Paradise,  I  think  that 
I  will  get  along  without  them,"  I  parried. 
"But  you  may  dye  my  finger-nails  red,  after 
the  bath." 

Kondje  fell  to  the  floor,  grabbed  her  bare 
toes,  and  rocked  back  and  forth,  laughing 
till  the  tears  flowed  from  her  eyes.  "Oh!  I 
do  love  the  way  you  say  things,"  she  gasped. 
"You  said  I  might  chop  your  fingers  off, 
when  really  you  meant  that  I  might  put 
color  on  them." 

Having  failed   in   the   matter  of  putting 

black  about  my  eyes,  Kondje  —  when  her 

amusement  over  my  Turkish  was  exhausted 

-  contented  herself  with  the  golden  powder 

for  my  hair,  and  then  stood  off  and  studied 

me  from  every  point  of  view,  to  see  if  she 

had   not   overlooked   some    hidden   charm, 

230 


which  might  be  brought  out.  I  do  not  know 
how  long  she  would  have  kept  this  up,  had 
not  the  sound  of  music  come  to  our  ears. 
At  this  she  bounced  into  the  air  like  a  rubber 
ball,  and  before  I  knew  what  was  about  to 
happen,  she  picked  me  up  and  threw  me  on 
her  back  like  a  sack  of  meal,  and  ran  through 
the  halls  with  me  as  if  my  weight  were  no- 
thing. She  deposited  me  on  the  little  indoor 
balcony  of  the  vestibule,  dropped  to  the  floor, 
and  panted  at  her  leisure. 

"Kondje!"  I  remonstrated,  "you  must 
not  treat  me  as  if  I  were  a  baby." 

She  rose  up  till  her  fiery  black  eyes  were 
on  a  level  with  mine.  "You  are  a  great  deal 
more  of  a  baby  than  I  am!"  she  declared, 
"though  I  am  not  yet  sixteen,  —  and  besides, 
you  have  n't  a  husband." 

"Neither  have  you,"  I  snubbed  back. 

Her  face  took  on  a  droll  expression.  She 
batted  her  eyes  mischievously,  and  brought 
her  mouth  close  to  my  car.  "I  am  going  to 
have  one  when  the  leaves  fall,"  she  whispered. 

231 


JJUU 


"Who  is  he,  Kondje"?" 

"You  dined  with  Selim  Pasha  —  yes?" 

I  nodded. 

"You  saw  a  big  handsome  man  there, 
standing  by  the  door,  seeing  that  everything 
was  right  —  yes?" 

I  nodded  again. 

"Most  beautiful  —  hey?"  She  smacked 
her  lips  and  half  closed  her  eyes. 

"I  think  he  is,  Kondje." 

"  I  shall  be  his.  He  has  even  seen  my  face 
and  touched  my  hand.  I  am  to  live  in  the 
little  cottage  on  the  hill,  so  as  not  to  be  far 
from  my  mistress." 

Before  Kondje's  confidences  had  come  to 
an  end,  the  other  members  of  our  household, 
dressed  in  gala  costume  and  preceded  by  the 
Valide,  came  down  the  stairs  and  filled  one 
side  of  the  hall.  The  wives  with  their  children 
were  in  the  first  row,  and  the  slaves  behind. 
Two  dancing-girls,  holding  baskets  full  of 
flowers,  on  their  bare  shoulders,  stood  by 
the  door,  and  several  African  eunuch  boys 

232 


were  near  them  with  brass  trays  filled  with 
the  petals  of  roses. 

As  the  guests  entered  the  hall  the  flower- 
petals  were  thrown  over  them.  One  by  one 
the  new-comers  ranged  themselves  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  hall.  When  all  were  in 
place,  the  salutations  began.  Down  to  the 
floor  went  all  the  heads,  to  be  raised  grace- 
fully, and  to  go  down  twice  more.  Then 
music  burst  forth,  and  the  ladies  of  the  dif- 
ferent harems  embraced  one  another.  Their 
wraps  were  taken  off,  and  they  were  con- 
ducted to  the  sitting-room  to  drink  coffee. 
There  I  was  presented  to  them. 

''Here  is  our  little  one,"  said  the  Valide. 
"  She  is  leaving  us  to-morrow  to  flutter  farther 
on  her  way.  She  has  not  yet  found  her  golden 
cage."  She  put  her  hand  on  my  head.  "My 
little  one,  there  is  no  happiness  except  in  a 
prison  where  the  jailer  is  the  lover  and  the 
life-giver." 

The  guests  applauded  these  words,  and 
some  came  over  and  kissed  me.  I  was  espe- 

233 


cially  attracted  by  a  certain  woman,  whose 
type  I  had  never  met  in  flesh  and  blood  be- 
fore. To  say  that  she  looked  like  a  Rossetti 
painting  would  be  doing  her  scant  justice, 
yet  it  was  of  the  Blessed  Damosel  I  thought 
when  I  saw  her. 

I  crossed  the  room  and  went  to  her.  "  You 
speak  French?"  I  asked. 

She  took  my  hand  in  both  of  hers,  leaned 
forward  and  kissed  me  several  times  on  the 
eyes.  "So  I  do,  little  one." 

Our  talk  was  trivial,  but  the  woman  be- 
came more  and  more  interesting  to  me. 
Abruptly  she  said  at  length :  — 

"You  will  come  and  spend  a  day  or  two 
with  me." 

"I  am  sorry,  but  I  can't,"  I  answered.  "I 
am  going  to  Russia  in  a  few  days,  and  have 
things  that  I  must  attend  to." 

She  put  her  arm  around  my  waist.  "  Never 
mind,  you  must  come  to  me  for  a  night,  at 
least.  I  came  here  to-day  especially  to  ar- 
range about  it.  I  had  heard  so  much  about 
234 


you,  and  I  am  in  trouble  and  need  your 
help." 

The  entreaty  in  her  voice,  and  the  hint  in 
her  words  carried  away  my  imagination, 
and  regardless  of  all  duties  I  found  myself 
pledged  to  go  to  her  on  the  following  night. 

A  bevy  of  slaves,  attired  in  the  lightest  of 
diaphanous  garments,  now  entered  the  room, 
and  salaaming  with  forehead  to  floor  an- 
nounced: "If  the  honorable  company  is 
ready,  so  is  the  bath-house."  And  to  the 
sound  of  music  they  accompanied  us  to  it. 

It  was  a  coquettish  little  building,  fairy- 
like  in  its  arrangement,  and  was  a  monu- 
ment to  the  love  of  Selim  Pasha  for  his  first 
wife.  I  was  told  that  he  had  seen  to  every 
detail  of  it  himself,  and  that  only  when  it 
was  completely  finished  had  he  conducted 
his  bride  to  it.  Though  a  separate  building, 
it  was  connected  with  the  main  house  by  a 
glass  corridor,  heavily  curtained.  We  en- 
tered a  large  marble  hall,  with  a  big  fireplace, 
wherein  the  coffee  was  always  made.  The 

235 


walls  of  the  hall  were  composed  of  smalt 
pieces  of  marble,  of  different  colors,  in  various 
patterns,  so  that  at  first  sight  they  looked 
as  if  covered  with  pale  Oriental  rugs.  The 
hall  was  three  stories  high,  to  the  roof,  and 
the  ceiling  was  decorated  with  a  row  of 
dancing  cupids.  Ten  marble  steps,  running 
the  whole  width  of  the  room,  led  up  to  a 
raised  landing,  whence  windows  looked  into 
the  garden.  From  this  landing,  slender 
marble  columns  supported  a  balcony,  from 
which  the  dressing-rooms  opened,  on  the 
second  floor.  Rich  rugs,  and  brocade  hang- 
ings, and  mirrors  on  doors  and  ceilings, 
made  the  bath-house  stunning.  In  the  dress- 
ing-rooms the  colors  were  reds  and  browns, 
giving  a  curiously  autumnal  effect. 

When  we  went  to  our  dressing-rooms  my 
little  Kondje  took  possession  of  me,  and 
after  making  me  ready  for  the  bath,  threw 
over  my  shoulders  a  lovely  peslemal,  a  big 
soft  white  towel  with  yellow  stripes  of  thick 
silk  running  through  it. 

236 


"  This,  most  honored  Hanoura,  is  for  your 
greatness,  from  the  Valide,  honored  and  be- 
loved first  wife  of  Selim  Pasha,  the  Magnifi- 
cent. As  you  are  the  guest  of  the  party," 
she  explained,  "all  the  ladies  will  give  you 
presents." 

She  took  down  my  hair,  braided  it  in  two 
braids,  and  arranged  it  on  top  of  my  head, 
fastening  it  tightly  in  a  head-kerchief  of  pale 
yellow  silk,  the  edge  of  which  was  trimmed 
with  silver  thread. 

"This,  honored  Hanoum,"  Kondje  an- 
nounced again,  "is  for  your  greatness,  from 
the  second  wife  of  Selim  Pasha,  the  Mag- 
nanimous." 

She  took  from  a  little  box  a  chain  with 
two  coral  pendants,  and  placed  it  around 
my  forehead.  "This,  honored  Hanoum,  is 
for  your  greatness.  It  comes  from  Ai'she 
Hanoum,  third  wife  of  Selim  Pasha,  the 
Wonderful." 

She  stepped  back  a  few  steps  to  survey 
me,  her  head  on  one  side;  smacked  her  lips 

237 


with  satisfaction,  and  salaamed.  "Now, 
honored  Hanoum,  you  may  proceed,  and  I, 
the  humble  one,  will  follow." 

As  I  came  out  of  my  room  several  other 
pestimal-covered  ladies,  barefooted  and 
barearmed,  emerged  from  theirs,  and  we 
salaamed  most  profoundly,  as  if  attired  in  the 
most  formal  manner,  before  we  went  down- 
stairs. There,  Djimlah  —  as  Kondje  would 
have  put  it,  fourth  beloved  wife  of  Selim 
Pasha,  the  Generous  —  greeted  me  and 
presented  me  with  a  pair  of  takouns.  They 
were  of  carved  oak,  and  the  leather  straps 
which  fastened  them  to  my  feet  had  my 
monogram  on  them  in  silver. 

The  heads  of  the  other  households  also 
gave  me  various  trinkets,  mostly  charms 
against  the  evil  eye;  and  amid  the  singing  of 
slaves  we  went  into  the  bathing-room.  The 
sight  that  greeted  us  when  the  door  was 
opened  was  beautiful  in  the  extreme.  The 
marble  rooms  were  decorated  from  floor  to 
ceiling  with  laurel,  and  the  marble  settees, 

238 


in  the  middle  of  the  rooms,  were  masses  of 
color,  being  covered  with  flowers,  in  pots. 

We  passed  in  through  a  human  lane  of 
slaves,  who  relieved  us  of  our  pestcmals;  and 
thus,  chaussees,  coiffecs,  mais  pas  habillees, 
\ve  entered,  leaving  outside  all  self-conscious- 
ness; and  soon  the  splashing  of  the  water, 
the  singing  of  the  slaves,  and  the  laughter  of 
all  filled  the  huge  resounding  rooms  with 
the  gayest  of  noise. 

Each  lady  was  in  the  hands  of  her  slave, 
and  my  little  Kondje  was  droller  than  ever. 
In  her  flowery  Oriental  language  she  invested 
me  with  all  the  beauties  of  the  world.  The 
Venus  of  Milo  was  nothing  in  comparison 
with  me,  whose  size  is  that  of  a  Jap.  While 
she  was  bathing  me  she  kept  on  repeating, 
"Mashallah!  mashallah!"  lest  some  djinn 
or  cv-sahib,  seeing  my  beauty,  might  be 
tempted  to  cast  an  evil  eye  on  me. 

The  temperature  of  these  rooms  was  170°, 
yet  we  stayed  in  them  for  hours,  oblivious  of 
the  heat.  After  an  hour,  the  flowers  withered, 

239 


and  were  removed ;  the  settees  were  washed, 
and  light  refreshments  brought  in.  Near  the 
end  of  our  stay  a  regular  cold  luncheon  was 
served,  and  I  may  say  here  that  the  cold 
dishes  prepared  for  "haman"  are  worthy 
of  poetry  for  their  description.  We  sat  on 
the  settees  as  we  ate,  with  a  slave  on  each 
side :  one  to  pass  us  the  new  dishes,  the  other 
to  take  away  those  we  were  through  with. 

Luncheon  over,  our  pestemals  were  thrown 
over  us  and  we  passed  out  of  the  hot  rooms 
into  the  cooling-rooms,  where,  as  we  lay  on 
the  couches,  the  slaves  covered  us  with  heavy 
burnouses.  A  new  pleasure  was  awaiting  us 
here.  While  we  had  been  bathing,  the  re- 
clining-room  had  been  decorated  with  leaves 
and  flowers,  in  the  form  of  numerous  arches. 
Under  these  we  lay  on  snowy  sheets  and 
pillows,  wrapped  in  our  silk  coverlets,  while 
our  hair  was  taken  down  and  rubbed  with 
rose-petals,  before  being  tied  up  in  soft, 
absorbent  towels.  Next  came  the  dyeing  of 
eyebrows,  and  lashes  black,  and  of  imger- 

240 


nails  crimson;  and,  last  of  all,  the  flower- 
bath. 

The  heavy  hangings  were  now  lowered 
over  the  windows,  till  the  light  was  dim,  and 
then  to  the  sound  of  a  low,  murmuring  song 
we  fell  asleep  and  rested  till  late  in  the  after- 
noon. Immensely  refreshed  we  woke  up, 
dressed,  and  went  out  on  a  hill  to  watch  the 
setting  sun.  The  Turks  are  not  sun-wor- 
shippers, but  to  miss  a  sunset  with  them  is 
almost  as  great  a  misdemeanor  as  to  omit 
praying  when  the  muezzin  calls  the  faithful 
to  prayer  from  the  top  of  the  minaret. 

That  night,  after  dinner,  we  had  our  third 
pleasant  surprise  when  the  Valide  presented 
to  us  the  world-famed  story-teller,  Massaljhe- 
Hiran.  She  salaamed  to  us  with  as  much 
dignity  as  does  Paderewski  before  he  takes 
his  seat  at  the  piano.  She  was  dressed  in 
dark  red  silk,  embroidered  with  green  leaves. 
Her  hair  was  braided,  arranged  on  top  of  her 
head,  and  surrounded  with  a  green  silk  head- 
kerchief,  on  which  patterns  were  worked  in 

241 


garnets.  Her  face,  long,  thin,  and  sallow, 
was  very  pale,  accentuating  a  pair  of  large 
black  eyes,  which  were  made  to  look  larger 
yet  by  black  pencilling.  Her  lips  were  dyed 
brick-red.  A  pair  of  earrings,  so  long  as  to 
touch  her  shoulders,  gave  a  barbaric  aspect 
to  her  Eastern  face.  Her  sleeves  were  of 
fleecy  material  and  quite  loose,  her  arms 
being  covered  with  ancient  bracelets.  Her 
hands,  interesting-looking  rather  than  pretty, 
were  literally  covered  with  rings, — presents, 
mostly,  from  the  powerful  of  the  land. 

She  took  her  place  in  the  middle  of  the 
floor,  removed  a  pair  of  embroidered  red 
slippers  from  her  feet,  and  sat  down  cross- 
legged  on  a  cushion.  All  the  ladies  and  slaves 
sat  around  her  in  the  form  of  a  semicircle. 
A  few  among  those  present  had  heard  her 
before,  but  most  of  us  knew  her  only  by 
reputation.  In  the  attitude  of  that  small 
audience  there  was  a  vvorshipfulness  that 
strongly  affected  me.  I  felt  that  I  was  in  the 
presence  of  genius. 
242 


l'~  Good-evening,  honorable  company,"  she 
said,  touching  the  floor  with  her  fingers,  and 
then  kissing  them  to  us.  Her  voice  had  some- 
thing of  the  same  quality  as  Sarah  Bern- 
hardt's,  only  it  was  on  a  much  lower  key. 

She  began  her  story  with  a  description  of 
a  stormy  night.  Presently  the  woman  next 
me  shivered,  and  unconsciously  I  drew  a 
scarf  around  me,  before  I  realized  with  a 
smile  that  we  were  in  a  warm  room.  The 
story  she  told  was  her  own;  it  was  on  the 
same  theme  as  that  of  Francesca  da  Rimini, 
or  Tristan  and  Isolde,  but  with  Oriental  ac- 
cessories, and  a  different  ending.  It  related 
the  fate  of  a  young  and  beautiful  Persian 
princess,  who,  while  on  her  way  to  become 
the  bride  of  a  king,  fell  in  love  with  the  cour- 
tier who  had  come  to  take  her  to  her  lord. 
Princess  Yamina,  on  discovering  that  the 
man  who  was  conveying  her  to  be  the  bride 
of  the  king  had  become  master  of  her  spirit, 
had  her  tent  put  up,  retired  into  it,  and 
placed  around  her  couch  twelve  of  her  young 

243 


maidens,  making  thus  of  chastity  and  purity 
an  insurmountable  barrier.  She  lay  there, 
praying  to  Allah  for  strength,  and  taking  only 
enough  nourishment  to  keep  the  breath  of  life 
in  her  frail  body.  When,  once  a  day,  it  was 
necessary  for  her  to  receive  the  King's  envoy, 
she  sat  erect,  fortified  by  her  maidenly  pride, 
while  Love's  tyrannical  hand  was  tearing 
at  her  bleeding  heart.  In  two  days  she  was 
strong  enough  to  continue  her  journey. 
When  she  arrived  at  the  castle  and  was  re- 
ceived by  the  King,  an  elderly  benevolent 
man,  she  prostrated  herself  before  him  and 
told  him  the  truth. 

'"Kill  me,  my  master,'  she  moaned, 
'since  I  was  not  capable  of  bringing  to  you 
intact  the  heart  of  your  future  wife.  Pierce 
with  cold  steel  the  body  that  is  not  worthy 
of  your  love,  but  do  not  touch  it  even  as  you 
might  that  of  a  slave;  for  it  is  polluted  by 
thoughts  of  love  for  another.' 

"  She  lay  there  waiting  to  be  slain.  A  side- 
door  opened  without  noise,  and  the  young 

244 


courtier  entered  —  he  who  had  stolen  the 
heart  and  the  thoughts  of  the  prostrate 
princess.  He  advanced  into  the  middle  of 
the  room  and  stood  there  with  his  arms 
crossed  on  his  noble  breast.  The  princess 
raised  her  head,  saw  him,  and  rose  to  her 
feet,  no  longer  trembling.  She  was  the 
woman,  now,  protecting  her  heart's  lord." 

The  narrator  paused  and  glared  at  us. 
She  was  for  the  moment  the  woman  ani- 
mated by  more  than  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  —  by  the  savagery  of  the  woman 
defending  the  man  she  loved.  Her  voice, 
when  she  spoke,  sounded  thick :  I  felt  as 
if  I  were  in  a  thunder-storm. 

"'Do  not  strike  him,  my  master,  he  is  in- 
nocent !  It  is  I  who  must  pay  the  price  — 
I  the  guilty  one.  It  is  not  his  fault  that  Allah 
made  him  so  beautiful  and  noble  that  no 
woman  could  help  loving  him.  Kill  me!'  she 
cried.  'Give  me  the  most  cruel  death,  but 
spare  him!'" 

Massaljhe-Hiranwas  kneeling  on  one  knee. 

245 


JJUU 


She  begged  and  implored,  and  we  saw  the 
princess  herself  passionately  trying  to  save 
the  life  of  her  lover. 

In  the  end  it  turned  out  that  the  young 
courtier  was  the  King,  and  all  ended  hap- 
pily. Such  was  the  nervous  pitch  to  which 
Massaljhe-Hiran  had  wound  us  up,  how- 
ever, that  many  were  sobbing  when  she 
ended,  and  I  suddenly  became  conscious 
that  the  tears  were  trickling  down  my  own 
cheeks.  Moreover,  my  muscles  had  become 
so  rigid,  in  the  intensity  with  which  I  had 
followed  her  story,  that  they  actually  pained 
me  when  they  became  relaxed.  Only  on  one 
other  occasion  have  I  had  the  same  feeling, 
and  that  was  when  Henry  Irving,  as  Robes- 
pierre, faced  the  ghosts. 

However,  the  Orientals  seldom  allow  one 
set  of  artificially  produced  emotions  to  domi- 
nate them,  and  after  the  story-telling  was  at 
an  end,  dancing-girls  glided  into  the  room, 
and,  to  the  sound  of  gay  music,  completed 
the  day's  entertainment. 
246 


Thus  ended  my  visit  to  Selim  Pasha's 
hospitable  household,  though  not  my  expe- 
riences with  Turkish  women.  In  my  last  visit 
I  was  to  hear  a  story,  and  to  play  a  part  in 
it,  which  I  know  must  seem  almost  incredible 
to  those  who  do  not  understand  Turkey. 

Djimlah,  Houlme,  and  Ai'she'  Hanoums, 
with  a  retinue  of  slaves,  came  down  to  the 
shore  of  the  Bosphorus,  where  my  unknown 
lady's  little  caique  was  awaiting  me,  to  see 
me  off.  I  was  sorry  to  leave  them,  and 
said  so. 

"Why  not  stay  with  us,"  suggested  Djim- 
lah hopefully;  "marry  one  of  our  men,  and 
know  happiness?" 

I  shook  my  head.  Why  I  might  not,  I  did 
not  know;  except  that,  although  the  Greeks 
may  love  and  respect  the  Turks,  may  live 
side  by  side  with  them,  there  must  always 
exist  that  antipathy  of  the  blood  to  remind 
us  that  they  are  our  conquerors,  and  that 
sometime  we  must  drive  them  from  our 
land  in  order  that  the  priests  may  finish  the 

247 


holy  litourghia,  and   our    statues  may  no 
longer  be  cold  in  exile. 

Yet  I  bade  my  Turkish  friends  farewell 
with  a  full  heart  and  silent  tears.  I  jumped 
into  the  waiting  caique,  the  caiksti,  in  his 
silky  bembazar,  pulled  at  his  oars,  and  we 
wrere  gone. 


X 

A  FLIGHT  FROM  THE  HAREM 

As  the  boatmen  rowed  me  swiftly  from 
one  bank  of  the  Bosphorus  to  the  other,  and 
then  along  to  the  Serai'  Bournou,  I  gazed  at 
the  illuminated  city  which  displayed  itself 
before  my  dazzled  eyes.  It  happened  that 
Constantinople  was  making  herself  beauti- 
ful that  summer  night,  to  celebrate  the  an- 
niversary of  her  ruler,  the  Commander  of 
the  Faithful. 

Near  and  far  the  slender  minarets  were 
covered  with  microscopic,  many-colored  oil 
lamps,  in  various  designs,  the  half-moon  be- 
ing the  favorite.  The  balconies  of  the  houses 
of  the  wealthy  were  playing  the  same  tune, 
on  a  lower  key,  as  the  tall  minarets,  while  the 
banks  of  the  most  beautiful  river  in  the  world 
were  masses  of  lights.  The  city  was  alive; 
the  harbor  was  filled  with  ships  adorned  with 

249 


strings  of  lanterns  from  mast  to  mast;  and 
the  horizon  was  ablaze  with  fireworks.  One 
would  say  that  even  the  sky  partook  of  the 
festivities :  its  deep  indigo  was  picked  out  in 
golden  stars,  while  a  silvery  moon  was  gazing 
coquettishly  at  the  thousands  of  half  moons 
that  strove  to  reproduce  her  grace. 

Arrived  at  the  house  of  my  Rossetti  lady, 
a  slave  took  charge  of  me;  and  when  I  was 
bathed  and  perfumed,  and  dressed  in  soft, 
Oriental  clothes,  I  was  left  to  my  own  de- 
vices. I  crouched  on  the  low  divan  by  my 
window  and  peeped  through  the  lattice  at 
the  splendors  outside. 

The  door  of  my  room  creaked,  and  as  the 
light  from  the  hall  shone  in  I  saw  that  it  was 
my  hostess  who  had  entered. 

llOs-gehli!  Os-gddi!"  she  called  out.  Her 
two  outstretched  hands  got  hold  of  mine,  and 
she  drew  me  to  her  bosom.  "My  little  blos- 
som, what  are  you  doing  here  in  the  dark? 
Are  you  helping  Allah  to  weave  garlands  for 
your  romances?" 
250 


"I  was  looking  at  the  beauty  outside." 
"Nay,  my  little  jasmine,  from  the  tone  of 
your  voice  I  know  that  you  were  in  dream- 
land.   Some  time  dreams  will  be  made  true; 
and  may  they  come  true  in  your  life." 

There  was  a  pathos  in  her  voice  that  I  had 
not  detected  at  our  previous  interview.  Ros- 
setti's  poem  came  back  to  me,  and  I  said 
aloud,  gazing  at  her  beauty :  — 

"Her  body  bore  her  neck  as  the  tree's  stem 
Bears  the  top  branch;  and  as  the  branch  sustains 
The  flower  of  the  year's  pride,  her  high  neck  bore 
That  face  made  wonderful  with  night  and  day." 

"Why  do  you  say  those  lines  ?  "  my  hostess 
asked. 

"Because  you  make  me  think  of  them." 

"Do  you  mean  that  I  look  like  Rossetti's 
paintings?" 

"I  rather  think  you  look  like  his  poems: 
you  are  the  embodiment  of  them." 

"And  am  I  this  to  you?" 

"Yes,  you  are  this  to  me.  Ever  since  I 
first  saw  you  I  have  been  drawn  to  you.  By 

251 


rights  I  ought  to  be  somewhere  else  to-night, 
but  I  am  with  you.  It  was  of  you  I  was 
thinking  when  you  came  into  my  room.  Do 
you  know,  I  do  not  even  know  your  name. 
That  does  not  matter,  though,  for  to  me  you 
are  my  Rossetti  lady." 

The  Turkish  woman  sat  on  the  divan,  near 
me,  her  fingers  playing  with  my  loose  hair. 

"You  are  a  sweet-scented  little  bride," 
she  said  irrelevantly.  "Where  is  the  bride- 
groom, little  one?" 

"Your  slave  just  gave  me  a  heliotrope 
bath,"  I  explained;  "and  as  for  the  bride- 
groom, I  am  afraid  his  grandsire  died  heir- 
less." 

"  Yavroum,  you  are  a  very  dear  person, 
and  I  hope  some  day  you  will  know  the  joy 
of  being  a  wife."  She  was  silent  for  a  long 
time,  and  then  asked,  suddenly:  "Shall  I  tell 
you  why  I  insisted  so  strongly  at  the  bath- 
party  that  you  should  come  to  see  me?" 

"Then  it  was  n't  because  you  liked  rne?" 

"Yes,   indeed,   dear    little   flower   of    the 

252 


pomegranate  tree.  The  minute  my  eyes  met 
yours  I  knew  that  I  liked  you,  and  I  knew 
that  you  belonged  to  us  Oriental  women. 
That  is  why  I  asked  you  to  come.  I  wanted 
to  ask  you  to  do  something  for  me,  something 
which  I  can  only  trust  to  few ;  and  if  I  come 
to  you  with  my  troubles  the  first  minute  of 
your  being  under  my  roof,  it  is  because  I  do 
not  want  you  to  feel  that  after  you  have 
broken  bread  with  me  you  will  be  obliged  to 
do  what  you  would  not  wish  to.  I  will  tell 
you  everything,  and  if  when  you  have  heard 
me  you  wish  to  go  away  and  forget  me, 
the  little  boat  you  came  in  is  waiting  for 
you." 

My  pulse  quickened.  What  could  she  be 
going  to  ask  me  to  do? 

"  Yavroum"  she  went  on,  "before  I  tell 
you  anything,  do  you  know  where  this  dwell- 
ing of  mine  is?" 

"No,  you  asked  me  to  meet  the  boatman 
so  late  that  I  scarcely  know  in  which  part  of 
the  country  it  is." 

253 


"  I  am  very  glad.  I  want  you  not  to  know, 
for  your  own  sake." 

Every  word  she  spoke  seemed  to  add  to 
the  romance  of  the  situation.  I  was  to  learn 
the  story  of  my  Rossetti  poem,  and  I  felt  sure 
that  it  could  be  nothing  less  than  a  wonder- 
ful love  story.  Bits  of  all  the  Oriental  tales 
I  knew  came  thronging  to  my  mind.  I  was 
afraid  to  utter  a  word,  lest  I  should  break  the 
spell  and  she  should  withhold  her  confidence 
from  me.  In  my  sojourn  among  the  Turkish 
wromen  I  had  always  been  expecting  to  come 
across  some  wonderful,  out-of-the-common 
romance;  but  their  lives,  when  seen  near  at 
hand,  were  generally  as  uneventful  as  the 
most  conventional  Western  life.  Now,  at 
length,  I  felt  that  I  was  to  learn  of  one  that 
would  come  up  to  my  expectations. 

"I  was  once  a  very  beautiful  woman,"  my 
hostess  began  in  the  simple,  un-self-conscious 
manner  of  the  East. 

" Mashallah !  are  you  not  now?"  I  cried. 
"I  would  give  my  soul  to  look  like  you." 
254 


She  smiled. 

"Yes,  I  know  I  am  good-looking  still;  but 
a  woman  nearing  thirty  is  not  the  same  as  at 
twenty;  and  when  I  was  twenty  I  was  very 
beautiful  indeed.  I  was  born  and  brought 
up  in  Asia  Minor,  where  my  father  was  a 
governor.  My  maternal  grandmother,  a 
woman  of  advanced  ideas,  sent  a  French  lady 
to  educate  me,  when  I  was  only  three;  and 
when  I  was  fifteen,  and  my  mother  died,  I 
was  brought  to  Constantinople  and  married 
to  my  husband,  who  is  ten  years  older  than  I 
am.  Three  children  were  born  to  us,  and 
my  life  ought  to  have  been  very  happy.  And 
it  would  have  been  if  my  head  had  not  been 
full  of  French  stories.  I  read  all  the  time, 
and  it  made  me  feel  that  I,  too,  had  the  right 
to  be  a  heroine. 

"One  day,  when  I  was  twenty  years  old, 
I  was  going  from  my  home  to  Foundokli  in 
my  little  caique.  It  was  a  hot  afternoon  and 
I  had  my  fercdje  thrown  back  a  little,  and 
only  had  my  veil  around  my  face,  not  over  it. 

255 


In  mid-stream  we  met  another  caique  in 
which  was  a  young  foreigner.  When  he  saw 
me,  he  cried  something  aloud  in  his  own 
tongue,  and  from  his  look  I  knew  that  it  was 
of  me  he  spoke.  So  I  drew  my  veil  close 
over  my  face  and  brought  iheferedje  around 
me.  This  did  not  discourage  the  man,  how- 
ever, and  he  ordered  his  caique  to  follow 
mine.  It  was  a  very  dangerous  thing  he  did, 
and  had  my  eunuchs  been  with  me  there 
would  surely  have  been  trouble. 

"He  followed  us  to  where  we  were  going, 
and  then  went  away,  apparently  thinking 
that  that  was  my  home.  Two  days  later  I 
had  partly  forgotten  the  incident,  though  I 
did  think  a  good  deal  of  the  man  and  his  good 
looks,  when  his  boat  happened  to  meet  mine 
again.  He  exclaimed,  this  time  in  French: 
'  At  last  I  have  found  her ! ' 

"I  don't  need  to  go  into  particulars,  but 

the  man  did  everything  in  his  power  to  come 

into  my  life.    My  husband  was  away  at  the 

time,  and  I  was  alone,  and  lovesick,  perhaps. 

256 


The  foreign  man  managed  to  send  me  letters. 
At  first  I  resented  his  writing  to  me,  and 
would  hardly  read  them;  but  he  was  very 
young  and  handsome,  and  he  wrote  me  such 
letters  as  they  write  in  books,  and  my  head 
became  so  turned  by  the  romance  of  it  that 
some  months  after  the  time  he  first  met  me, 
I  left  my  husband,  my  home,  and  my  babies, 
and  went  with  him." 

My  Rossetti  lady  had  been  telling  me  her 
story  in  such  a  quiet,  restrained  voice  that  at 
first  even  this  climax  did  not  seem  startling. 

"Have  I  told  you  that  he  was  an  English- 
man, and  what  they  call  a  lord  in  his  coun- 
try? He  took  me  to  Scotland,  and  there 
married  me.  The  first  three  years  went  like 
a  dream.  He  did  not  keep  me  behind  lat- 
ticed windows,  but  he  kept  me  under  closer 
watch  than  I  had  ever  been  before,  and 
guarded  me  as  if  he  could  never  be  sure  of 
me;  though  I  was  constantly  in  society  and 
saw  a  great  deal  of  that  world  which  had 
always  been  such  a  mystery  to  me.  I  don't 

257 


know  whether  I  loved  him  during  those  three 
years  or  not.  All  I  can  say  is  that  my  life  was 
like  a  picture-book  whose  leaves  were  turned 
very  fast.  He  took  me  to  his  mother.  He  was 
an  only  son,  and  she  was  very  kind  to  me.  I 
do  not  think  that  besides  his  mother  any  one 
knew  that  I  was  Turkish.  He  took  me  to  his 
court,  and  I  met  his  queen;  and  we  went 
from  one  place  to  another  all  over  Europe. 
He  was  very  rich  and  liberal,  and  everywhere 
we  went  I  had  a  house  of  my  own,  but  I  was 
always  a  prisoner. 

"It  was  in  the  south  of  France  that  my 
baby  was  born.  To  think  that  Allah  could 
bless  such  a  union  with  his  most  wonderful 
gift!"  she  cried,  clasping  her  hands  to  her 
heart.  "It  was  a  little  girl,  and  Edgar  named 
her  Hope,  because  he  said  she  was  the  hope 
that  I  at  last  belonged  to  him  entirely. 

"When  they  put  the  baby  into  my  arms  I 
knew  why  Allah  had  sent  her  to  me.  It  was 
like  the  breaking  of  a  spell,  the  lifting  of  a 
veil  from  my  clouded  vision,  and  I  saw  my 


past  life,  my  husband,  and  my  babies  loom 
up  as  if  from  another  world.  From  that 
minute  I  had  no  peace  of  mind.  Whether 
asleep  or  awake  there  was  only  one  thought 
with  me :  my  husband.  I  began  to  remember 
all  the  little  things  he  had  done  and  said  to 
me,  and  gradually  I  began  to  worship  him. 
I  wanted  him  as  I  never  knew  before  that  one 
human  being  could  want  another.  And  all 
that  time  I  was  loved,  almost  devoured,  by 
the  man  who  had  taken  me  away  from  my 
home.  I  could  not  bear  it.  I  began  to  plan 
and  plan  how  I  might  go  back  to  my  own 
people  and  my  own  country. 

"When,  as  a  girl,  I  had  read  about  Euro- 
pean life  it  had  seemed  to  me  so  attractive, 
so  wonderful.  But  when  I  came  to  taste  it, 
it  was  empty  and  bitter.  European  women 
have  no  friends,  as  we  understand  them. 
They  have  no  leisure  hours  to  think  and  to 
dream,  and  to  come  to  know  themselves  and 
their  God.  They  do  not  even  have  time  to 
take  care  of  their  children;  and  nurses,  with 

259 


whom  they  would  not  for  anything  in  the 
world  associate  themselves,  are  intrusted 
with  the  sacred  duty  of  forming  their  chil- 
dren's minds.  Indeed  there  is  nothing  sacred 
in  a  European  woman's  life,  —  at  least, 
yavroum"  she  modified  her  statement,  "not 
in  the  lives  of  the  women  I  have  seen.  Do 
you  know,  little  bride  of  the  river,  that 
though  Edgar  had  kept  me  so  close  to  him, 
lots  of  men  had  told  me  things  they  had  no 
business  to  tell  me.  Oh !  I  was  sick  of  it  all. 
Not  once  in  all  those  dreary  years  had  I  met 
with  people  who  said,  'If  Allah  wishes  it,' 
'If  it  is  the  will  of  Allah.'  But  I  prayed  and 
prayed  to  my  great  Allah  to  let  me  return  to 
my  own  people.  And  he  heard  my  prayer. 

"  We  were  in  Scotland,  and  an  uncle  of  Ed- 
gar's died,  leaving  him  an  estate  and  money. 
Edgar  had  to  go,  and  could  not  take  me  with 
him  because  I  was  ill.  As  soon  as  he  went 
out  of  the  house  I  took  pen  and  paper  and 
poured  my  whole  heart  out  with  it,  and  sent 
it  to  my  husband.  I  implored  him  to  take 
260 


me  back,  even  if  he  now  had  other  wives;  to 
give  me  just  a  little  corner,  from  wrhich  I 
could  watch  him  and  be  near  him. 

"I  sent  the  letter,  and  waited.  How  slow 
the  days  were,  and  at  the  end  of  each  there 
came  a  letter  from  Edgar  full  of  his  wild 
love  for  me,  which  sickened  my  heart.  Two 
weeks  had  gone  by ;  Edgar  was  to  come  back 
soon  now,  and  no  reply  had  reached  me. 

"  One  evening  as  I  was  sitting  in  my  room, 
the  tears  trickling  down  on  my  breast,  the 
footman  came  to  tell  me  that  a  tall,  dark 
gentleman,  who  refused  to  give  his  name, 
wished  to  see  me.  I  ran  downstairs,  and 
there  in  the  hall  stood  my  husband. 

"He  took  me  into  his  arms,  tears  and  all, 
and  an  hour  later  I  escaped  with  him,  and 
came  back  to  my  home.  Before  I  left  Scot- 
land I  wrote  a  letter  to  Edgar,  telling  him 
that  my  husband  had  come  for  me,  and  that 
I  was  going  home  to  my  people. 

"  Yavroum,  can  you  believe  it,  but  my 
husband  still  loved  me,  and  my  place  in  his 

261 


heart  was  still  empty  and  waiting  for  me. 
He  forgave  all;  for  he  understood. 

"A  month  had  not  gone  by  when  Edgar 
was  in  Constantinople.  He  came  straight 
to  my  husband  and  accused  him  of  stealing 
me  away  from  him.  It  was  a  very  danger- 
ous thing  to  do,  and  any  other  man  than  my 
husband  would  have  had  him  killed  and 
thrown  into  the  Bosphorus.  But  Ahmet  Ali 
ordered  the  carriage  and  told  Edgar  to  come 
with  him  and  see  me  in  my  Stamboul  home. 
There  he  brought  him  into  the  sitting-room 
and  left  him  with  me  alone. 

"When  Edgar  saw  me  he  held  out  his  arms 
for  me;  but  the  sight  of  him  filled  me  only 
with  loathing. 

"  I  can  never  forget  him,  never.  Yavroum, 
whatever  your  life  may  be,  be  careful  with 
men.  If  you  hurt  one  of  them,  and  he  turns 
on  you  his  sad  eyes,  they  will  follow  you 
through  life.  Sometimes  when  you  will  forget 
and  be  happy  playing  with  your  baby,  that 
baby  will  look  at  you  as  the  man  did,  and 
262 


there  will  be  no  joy  for  you.  If  you  ever  be- 
long to  one  man,  even  though  you  may  think 
that  there  is  no  great  love  in  his  heart  for  you, 
stay  by  him,  and  do  no  wrong. 

"I  was  full  of  bitterness  that  day  for  Ed- 
gar. I  accused  him  of  having  done  me  a 
very  great  wrong,  though,  in  truth,  the  wrong 
was  mine.  When  I  told  him  that  I  did  not 
love  him,  that  I  never  had  loved  him,  that  it 
was  a  silly  girl's  whim  that  took  me  to  him, 
I  think  he  would  have  killed  me  if  my  hus- 
band had  not  stepped  in.  Then  he  turned 
furiously  on  Ahmet,  and  would  have  killed 
him,  I  know,  had  not  Ahmet  been  too  quick 
and  too  strong  for  him.  He  had  a  white 
cloth,  wet  with  some  chemical,  in  his  hand, 
and  forced  this  over  Edgar's  face;  and  after 
a  terrible  struggle  he  threw  him  to  the  floor, 
and  there  he  presently  lay  as  if  dead,  though 
Ahmet  said  he  was  only  unconscious.  Then 
instead  of  killing  him,  my  husband  had  him 
put  on  a  ship  that  was  going  away. 

"I  did  not  hear  of  him  again  until  two 

263 


years  later,  when  Ahmet  told  me  that  Edgar 
had  been  killed,  and  that  his  child  was  under 
my  husband's  care.  And  now,  yavroum,  I 
come  to  where  I  must  ask  you  to  help  me. 
Edgar's  mother  is  having  search  made  every- 
where for  the  child ;  even  the  Sultan  has  been 
approached  by  the  English  ambassador.  I 
want  you,  yavroum,  when  you  go  back  to 
America,  to  write  a  letter  to  her  and  tell  her 
that  Hope  is  happy  and  well;  and  that,  con- 
sidering that  she  has  Turkish  blood  in  her, 
we  are  bringing  her  up  as  a  noble  Osmanli 
woman  should  be  brought  up.  Should  the 
child,  however,  when  she  grows  to  be  a 
woman,  seem  unhappy  in  Turkey,  we  will 
send  her  back  to  her  in  England.  But  I  must 
teach  her  now,  while  she  is  little,  something 
of  the  greatness  of  Allah.  Here,  yavroum, 
is  the  address  to  which  to  write." 

Mechanically  I  took  the  piece  of  paper 
with  the  address  on  it,  and  stared  at  my  Ros- 
setti  lady  as  she  finished  her  story  and  made 
her  request. 
264 


She  was  looking  at  me  imploringly. 

"You  will,  yavroum,  will  you  not?  For  if 
the  old  duchess  makes  much  fuss,  I  am  afraid 
I  shall  lose  the  child." 

"Are  you  afraid  of  your  husband  killing 
it?"  I  asked. 

The  horror  in  her  face  showed  me  that  we 
had  got  beyond  the  bounds  of  possibility. 

"Oh,  no!  only  she  might  have  to  be  sent 
into  Asia  Minor,  to  my  husband's  mother, 
and  then  I  should  not  have  the  chance  to 
watch  over  her  myself,  and  to  give  her  back 
to  England,  if  she  should  desire  it." 

"  Hanoum,  why  don't  you  send  her  now  ?" 
I  asked.  "She  is  English  through  her  father, 
and  she  is  the  only  child  that  grandmother 
has." 

My  Rossetti  lady's  face  was  again  nearly 
as  horror-stricken  as  before. 

"Give  the  child  to  be  brought  up  among 
that  godless  set  of  people.  No !  no !  I  could 
not  do  it!  Besides,  my  pasha  would  never 
hear  of  it.  He  says  that  the  little  girl  is  partly 

265 


I,  and  that  he  could  never  give  any  part  of 
me,  no  matter  how  small,  to  the  infidels." 

"  Do  you  want  me  to  write  under  my  name 
or  yours?"  I  asked. 

"Neither,  yavroum.  Just  any  name,  and 
no  address.  I  shall  give  you  a  little  minia- 
ture of  the  child,  and  several  pictures.  Send 
them  to  the  grandmother,  and  tell  her  that 
once  a  year  pictures  and  news  of  the  child 
shall  be  sent  to  her,  and  that  little  Hope  is 
well  and  happy." 

"  How  can  I  say  that,  since  I  have  not  seen 
the  child?"  I  protested,  rather  feebly. 

"You  shall  see  her  to-morrow." 

I  was  not  happy  in  the  situation.  I  had 
had  my  fill  of  romance,  to  be  sure;  but  I  had 
been  dragged  into  playing  a  part  in  it  that  I 
did  not  particularly  approve  of,  although  I 
knew  the  futility  of  trying  to  play  any  other 
part  than  that  assigned  to  me.  I  looked  out 
of  my  latticed  window  upon  the  Bosphorus, 
and  as  I  looked  the  mystery  of  the  East  again 
stole  over  my  senses.  I  turned  my  eyes  to 
266 


the  woman,  slim  and  graceful,  and  of  a  beauty 
that  I  could  well  believe  had  inspired  the  love 
it  had  in  two  men  of  alien  races,  and  my 
Western  prejudices  fell  from  me. 

"Dear  Hanoum,"  I  said,  "I  will  do  what 
you  ask  me  to  do."  Then  emboldened  by 
the  favor  I  was  going  to  do  for  her,  I  asked, 
as  perhaps  only  in  that  dark  room  of  another 
world  I  could  have  asked :  "  Do  you  love  your 
husband  as  much  as  you  thought  you  did  ?  " 

She  leaned  over  and  took  my  hand. 

"Dear  little  blossom,  you  don't  know 
what  love  is,  do  you  ?  I  love  my  husband  a 
million  times  more  than  I  ever  did  before, 
though  the  past  can  never  be  undone,  and 
whenever  I  feel  my  husband's  eyes  upon  me 
I  shudder  at  the  thought  that  he  may  possi- 
bly be  thinking  of  that  other  man.  A  woman 
can  never  belong  to  two  men  —  never !  A 
woman  is  a  flower,  and  cannot  be  touched 
by  two  persons  without  being  polluted.  The 
past  always  comes  between,  yarroum ;  but 
out  of  that  sorrow  I  can  be  a  good  mother, 

267 


a  good  wife,  now  when  the  storm  no  longer 
blows,  though  the  trees  have  fallen,  and  the 
wreckage  is  all  around  me." 

She  leaned  forward  on  the  divan,  held  her 
palms  upward,  and  prayed  to  her  God :  — 

"  O  Allah,  take  care  of  the  living,  and  for- 
give the  dead!" 

It  seemed  all  in  keeping  with  the  night  and 
the  woman,  looking  more  than  ever  like  the 
embodiment  of  a  poem,  a  greater  poem  now 
than  Rossetti  ever  wrote.  She  was  the  East 
itself:  the  mysterious  East,  with  its  strange 
ideas  of  love,  and  death,  and  of  religion. 

After  one  of  those  silences  that  seem  a  nat- 
ural part  of  an  Oriental  conversation,  my 
Rossetti  lady  drew  me  to  her  and  kissed  me, 
saying:  — 

"Little  crest  of  the  wave,  you  have  helped 
to  give  peace  to  one  who  has  brought  storm 
to  life.  May  the  doing  of  this  for  me  be 
rewarded  with  a  fund  of  happiness  from 
which  you  may  draw  daily."  She  rose  to 
her  feet  as  she  spoke.  "Come,  let  us  go 

268 


down  where  you  can  meet  my  lord  and  my 
children." 

They  were  in  the  dining-room,  and  had 
apparently  been  awaiting  us;  for  along  the 
wall  stood  a  row  of  motionless  slaves,  one 
hand,  in  military  style,  straight  down  at  their 
sides,  the  other  supporting  the  dishes  that 
were  on  their  heads. 

"This  is  my  husband,"  said  my  hostess, 
putting  my  hand  into  that  of  Ahmet  Pasha. 
"Our  American  friend." 

"We  are  happy  to  have  you  among  us, 
young  Hanoum;  and  this  anniversary  of  our 
great  Pattishah  will  be  doubly  celebrated 
by  us  hereafter,"  he  said,  with  simple  sin- 
cerity. 

Ahmet  Pasha  was  a  Saracen  evidently,  not 
a  Turk,  and  as  I  looked  at  him  I  did  not 
wonder  that  my  Rossetti  lady  had  left  the 
Englishman  and  come  back  to  him:  I  only 
wondered  that  she  had  ever  left  him.  In  his 
splendid  uniform  and  his  decorations  he  was 
an  almost  ideal  hero.  I  was  surprised  at  his 

269 


taking  dinner  with  us,  but  heard  later  that  he 
always  ate  with  his  wife  except  when  there 
were  Turkish  women  present. 

The  children  were  very  pretty  and  healthy 
looking,  and  most  devoted  to  their  mother. 
After  the  meal  was  over  we  were  taken  to  the 
Sultan's  palace,  where  a  midnight  banquet 
was  served  to  a  thousand  pashas  and  foreign 
grandees.  We  women  sat  with  the  women 
of  the  palace  in  the  gardens,  watching  the 
fireworks,  and  refreshed  with  sweets  and 
sherbets  every  five  or  ten  minutes. 

Home  again,  and  my  Rossetti  lady  took 
me  to  her  room  and  showed  me  the  necklace 
of  red  rubies  her  husband  had  given  her  that 
day,  as  is  customary  on  public  anniversaries, 
and  the  neglect  of  which  would  have  been 
equivalent  to  a  notice  of  impending  divorce. 
Next  she  opened  her  jewelry  box  and  asked 
me  to  choose  from  it  anything  that  took  my 
fancy,  since  she  wished  to  give  me  some- 
thing. While  we  were  examining  the  jewels, 
and  when  she  had  begun  to  let  down  her 
270 


hair,  Ahmet  Pasha  sent  word  to  ask  if  he 
might  come  in  and  join  our  conversation. 
The  Turks  quite  often  turn  night  into  day 
when  the  fancy  takes  them.  We  did  that 
night;  thus  not  going  to  bed  until  after  five 
o'clock. 

As  we  sat  there  on  the  divan,  my  Rossetti 
lady  had  her  hair  loose  on  her  shoulders, 
except  for  a  ribbon  holding  it  back  from  her 
face.  Ahmet  Pasha  gathered  a  strand  of  it 
in  his  fingers,  and  turned  to  me. 

"  Did  you  ever  see  anything  more  exquisite 
in  your  life?"  he  asked. 

I  had  to  admit  that  I  had  never  seen  any- 
thing to  equal  it. 

"Nor  is  there  a  woman  more  charming," 
he  said,  his  Turkish  politeness  not  permitting 
him  to  declare  in  the  presence  of  another 
that  she  was  the  most  charming  of  all. 

My  Rossetti  lady  took  his  hand  and  kissed 
it  in  silence;  and  I  thought  I  saw,  together 
with  love,  the  gratitude  of  a  woman  who  has 
sinned  and  has  been  forgiven. 

271 


In  the  forenoon  of  the  next  day  the  Turkish 
lady  came  to  the  house.  With  her  were  her 
slaves  and  a  child.  At  once  I  recognized 
whose  child  it  must  be. 

I  took  her  on  my  lap,  and  spoke  to  her  in 
English. 

"Little  girlie,  what  is  your  name?" 

The  child  looked  at  her  mother,  put  her 
little  finger  in  her  mouth,  and  whispered:—- 

"I  am  mother's  little  Hope.  But  they  call 
me  Salihe  Hanoum  now." 

"Do  you  like  things  here?"  I  asked. 

"Yes;  and  soon  I  am  coming  back  to  live 
with  mother" ;  and  with  the  words  she  scram- 
bled down  and  ran  to  my  Rossetti  lady. 

This  day  was  the  last  time  I  ever  saw  any 
of  the  household  of  Ahmet  Pasha.  In  a  few 
days  I  went  to  Russia,  and  some  six  weeks 
later  returned  to  Constantinople  to  take  the 
steamer  for  Naples,  where  I  was  to  meet 
the  boat  for  America.  The  steamer  was  one 
of  those  semi-freight  affairs  that  carry  more 
cargo  than  passengers,  and  spent  a  day  or 
272 


two  each  at  some  eight  ports  before  reaching 
Naples.  On  the  quay,  as  I  was  embarking 
at  Constantinople,  a  young  Englishman  had 
been  introduced  to  me  by  a  member  of  the 
Greek  Legation.  We  two  were  the  only  first- 
class  passengers  who  made  the  whole  trip 
to  Naples,  and  naturally  we  became  well 
acquainted  by  the  time  we  reached  Sicily. 

The  night  that  the  boat  stopped  at  Palermo 
we  were  sitting  on  deck.  It  was  a  warm  Oc- 
tober night,  brilliant  with  starlight,  a  night 
whose  witchery  plays  the  mischief  with  the 
tongues  of  people.  My  Englishman  lost  the 
reserve  that  he  might  have  kept  under  a 
northern  sky,  and  began  to  tell  me  why  he 
had  come  to  Turkey. 

"  It  was  a  wild-goose  chase,"  he  said,  "  and 
I  tell  you  I  never  wish  again  to  have  much 
to  do  with  your  Turkish  friends.  I  was  hunt- 
ing for  a  child,  the  child  of  my  cousin;  but 
I  might  as  well  have  been  trying  to  kidnap 
the  Sultan."  And  interlarded  with  "don't 
you  know's"  and  "fahncy's,"  he  told  me 

273 


the  story  which  two  months  before,  again  on 
a  wonderful  southern  night,  gloriously  illu- 
minated, a  Turkish  woman  had  told  to  me. 

"You  see  Edgar  could  not  stand  it,"  he 
concluded.  "Two  years  after  she  left  him 
he  blew  his  brains  out.  No  one  knew  the 
\voman  was  Turkish,  except  his  mother,  and 
now  myself.  I  met  her  once,  and  I  tell  you 
she  was  the  kind  of  a  woman  a  man  would 
go  mad  over.  Immediately  after  Edgar's 
death  the  child  was  stolen,  and  my  aunt  was 
almost  prostrated  by  it.  That  is  why  I  have 
been  hunting  through  Turkey  for  her." 

"What  makes  you  think  that  the  child  is 
in  Turkey?"  I  asked,  making  my  voice  as 
steady  as  I  could. 

"  Oh,  the  husband  sent  a  letter  from  Paris, 
saying  that  he  had  taken  the  child  to  bring 
up  in  the  true  faith;  but  you  see  we  don't 
know  where  they  are.  We  don't  even  know 
that  they  live  in  Constantinople,  and  Tur- 
key is  beastly  big  when  you  go  on  a  hunt  like 
mine.  All  the  same,  I  have  an  idea  that  had 
274 


I  stayed  much  longer  in  the  capital  I  should 
have  disappeared,  too,  and  no  one  would 
ever  have  heard  of  me  again,  although  I 
had  the  help  of  the  Embassy." 

My  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  lights  of  Pa- 
lermo, and  on  Monte  Pelegrino  beyond,  and 
I  did  not  speak.  Perhaps  my  English  friend 
thought  I  was  not  as  much  interested  in  his 
account  as  I  might  have  been.  If  he  had 
only  known  how  interested  I  was ! 

I  thought  of  the  addressed  envelope  down 
in  my  trunk,  and  of  the  miniature  and  the 
photographs  of  an  English  child.  But  this 
was  not  mine  to  tell,  nor  would  it  have  helped 
him  if  I  had. 

The  lights  of  Palermo  twinkled  cheerily  at 
us  across  the  water ;  but  behind  them  Monte 
Pelegrino  seemed  to  loom  sardonically,  as  if 
it  were  amused  at  the  tiny  struggles  of  the 
insects  at  its  feet,  who  called  themselves 
men. 


flitoersibe 

CAMBRIDGE  .   MASSACHUSETTS 
O    .    S    •    A 


THE  BREAKING  IN  OF  A 
YACHTSMAN'S  WIFE 

By  MARY  HEATON  VORSE 

"  Clever  !  Sparkling  !  Full  of  quaint  humor  and  crisp 
description  !  Altogether  a  book  which  will  not  disap- 
point the  reader.  It  is  'different,'  and  that  is  one  great 
merit  in  a  book."  —Brooklyn  Eagle. 

"  It  will  puzzle  holiday  makers  to  find  a  better  vacation 
book  than  this.  Those  who  go  up  and  down  the  Sound 
in  yachts  will  find  it  especially  pleasing  ;  it  will  appeal 
to  those  who  are  fond  of  human  nature  studies ;  may 
be  recommended  even  more  decidedly  to  the  serious 
than  to  the  young  and  frivolous  ;  a  tonic  to  depression 
and  an  antidote  to  gloom."  —  N.  Y.  Times. 

"  Charming,  with  its  salt,  sea-slangy  flavor,  its  double 
love  thread,  and  its  pleasant  chapters  dealing  with 
Long  Island  Sound,  the  Mediterranean,  Massachusetts 
Bay  and  Venetian  lagoons. "  -  —  Chicago  Record-Herald. 

Illustrated  by  Reginald  Birch.    I2mo,  $1.50 


HOUGHTON  /\S»,  BOSTON 

MIFFLIN  /^W  AND 

COMPANY  ra]E)  NEW  YORK 


HUMAN  BULLETS 


By  TADAYOSHI  SAKURAI 


" '  Human  Bullets '  is  the  most  remarkable  book,  in  a 
literary  and  psychological  way,  brought  out  through  the 
war  clash  of  Russia  and  Japan.  It  is  the  revelation  at 
once  of  the  soul  of  a  soldier  and  the  moving  spirit  of  a 
people."  —  New  York  World. 

"  The  book  as  a  whole  is  a  singular  and  strikingly  valuable 
work,  not  only  by  reason  of  its  vivid  descriptions  of  the 
stern  side  of  war,  but  for  its  revelation  of  Japanese  ideals 
of  patriotism  and  military  duty."  —  Brooklyn  Eagle. 

"The  story  is  told  simply,  but  with  such  a  touch  of  realism 
that  his  word-pictures  are  distinctly  picturesque.  .  .  .  The 
author  has  shown  rare  literary  skill,  and  the  translator  and 
editor  have  not  permitted  the  narrative  to  lose  anything 
of  technical  value." —  Transcript,  Boston. 

"  It  is  an  illuminating  exposition  of  the  Japanese  mind,  in 
war  and  in  peace.  .  .  .  The  book  furnishes  a  striking 
picture  of  what  war  actually  is,  even  under  its  most 
humane  aspects."  —  Bookman,  N.  Y. 

With  frontispiece  in  color  by  the  author 

1 2 mo,  $1.25  net.  Postpaid  $1.37 


HOUGHTON  /"Sbg.  BOSTON 

MIFFLIN  /^W  AND 

COMPANY  ralra  NEW  YORK 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
s  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


REC'D  LD-URL 
oci  o7«n  '  flBLAPRtS 


MAR21199B 


I TLE  i- 


ocr  082007 


C  05 


27 


J  4 1986 


3  115800493  82 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACI 


AA      000033078   7 


' 


